Puneet Varma (Editor)

National Theatre Live

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First episode date
  
25 June 2009

National Theatre Live i1184photobucketcomalbumsz329minegottTHEATRE

Cast
  
Benedict Cumberbatch, Jonny Lee Miller, Fiona Shaw, Dominic Cooper, Mark Addy

Similar
  
Penny Dreadful, Frankenstein: The True Story, Kyoufu Densetsu Kaiki! Fra, Luther, The Hollow Crown

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National Theatre Live is an initiative operated by the Royal National Theatre in London, which broadcasts live via satellite, performances of their productions to cinemas and arts centres around the world.

Contents

About

I grew up in Manchester in the 60s. If I had been able to see Olivier's National Theatre at my local cinema, I would have gone all of the time.

— Nicholas Hytner, director of the Royal National Theatre.

The programme began its pilot season in June 2009 with a production of Phèdre, starring Helen Mirren, which screened live in 70 cinemas across the UK. Two hundred more venues eventually showed the production internationally, resulting in a combined audience of around 50,000 people for this one performance. The second production, All's Well That Ends Well, showed at a total of around 300 screens, and today, the number of venues that show NT Live productions has grown to around 700.

With the exception of a Saturday matinee for Nation, a Monday evening showing for London Assurance, and a Tuesday evening showing for A Streetcar Named Desire, all National Theatre Live productions have been broadcast on a Thursday evening, to avoid conflicting with cinemas' weekend schedules. Most venues screen the productions live as they are broadcast, but because of the time differences in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States venues in those countries show the recorded production some days later. Many venues also offer repeat screenings of popular productions which they term 'Encores'.

Most productions broadcast are plays performed in repertory at the Royal National Theatre, but works by other companies have been included. A Disappearing Number by Complicite was broadcast live from the Theatre Royal, Plymouth on 14 October 2010. The Donmar Warehouse's production of King Lear, starring Derek Jacobi was broadcast live from Covent Garden on 3 February 2011. In the summer of 2013, a broadcast of Macbeth starring Kenneth Branagh and Alex Kingston was broadcast live from the Manchester International Festival on 20 July 2013. A Streetcar Named Desire starring Gillian Anderson was broadcast live from the Young Vic on 16 September 2014.

Live broadcasts

Live performances of well-known stories are broadcast from the National Theatre in London's West End. They are certified differently from feature films.

Season 1

The first NT season commenced on 25 June 2009, and ended on 28 June 2010, and featured five live shows.

  • Phedre – 25 June 2009
  • All's Well That Ends Well – 1 October 2009
  • Nation – 30 January 2010
  • The Habit of Art – 22 April 2010
  • London Assurance – 28 June 2010

    • Season 2

    The second NT season commenced on 14 October 2010, and ended on 30 June 2011, featuring six shows; one of which had two performances in two weeks.

  • A Disappearing Number – 14 October 2010
  • Hamlet – 9 December 2010
  • Fela! – 13 January 2011
  • King Lear – 3 February 2011
  • Frankenstein – 17 & 24 March 2011
  • The Cherry Orchard – 30 June 2011

    • Season 3

    The third season began in mid September 2011, and finished in late March 2012, again with six shows.

  • One Man, Two Guvnors – 15 September 2011
  • The Kitchen – 6 October 2011
  • Collaborators – 1 December 2011
  • Travelling Light – 9 February 2012
  • The Comedy of Errors – 1 March 2012
  • She Stoops to Conquer – 29 March 2012

    • Season 4

  • The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – 6 September 2012
  • The Last of the Haussmans – 11 October 2012
  • Timon of Athens – 1 November 2012
  • The Magistrate – 17 January 2013
  • People – 21 March 2013
  • This House – 16 May 2013
  • The Audience – 13 June 2013
  • Macbeth – 20 July 2013

    • Season 5

  • Othello – 26 September 2013
  • Coriolanus – 30 January 2014
  • War Horse – 27 January 2014
  • King Lear – 1 May 2014
  • A Small Family Business – 12 June 2014
  • Skylight – 17 July 2014

    • Season 6

  • Medea – 4 September 2014
  • A Streetcar Named Desire – 16 September 2014
  • JOHN – 9 December 2014, by Lloyd Newson, DV8 Physical Theatre
  • Treasure Island – 22 January 2015
  • Behind the Beautiful Forevers – 12 March 2015, adaptation by David Hare
  • A View From the Bridge – 26 March 2015
  • The Hard Problem – 16 April 2015
  • Man and Superman – 14 May 2015
  • Everyman – 16 July 2015, adaptation by Carol Ann Duffy, with Chiwetel Ejiofor in the title role

    • Season 7

  • The Beaux' Stratagem – 3 September 2015
  • Hamlet – 15 October 2015
  • Of Mice and Men – 19 November 2015
  • Jane Eyre – 8 December 2015
  • Les Liaisons Dangereuses – 28 January 2016
  • As You Like It – 25 February 2016
  • Hangmen – 3 March 2016

    • Season 8

  • The Deep Blue Sea - 1 September 2016
  • The Threepenny Opera - 22 September 2016
  • No Man's Land - 15 December 2016
  • Amadeus - 2 February 2017
  • Saint Joan - 16 February 2017
  • Hedda Gabler - 9 March 2017
  • Twelfth Night - 6 April 2017
  • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead - 20 April 2017
  • Obsession - 11 May 2017
  • Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - 18 May 2017
  • Peter Pan - 10 June 2017
  • Salomé - 22 June 2017
  • Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches - 20 July 2017
  • Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika - 27 July 2017
  • Yerma - 31 August 2017

    • References

    National Theatre Live Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA