Elliot Levey
2021Much Ado About Nothing
Josie Rourke
David Tennant, Catherine Tate
Two young lovers, Claudio and Hero, are to be married imminently but the devious scheming of a resentful Prince looks set to thwart the nuptials. Meanwhile, marriage seems inconceivable for reluctant lovers Beatrice and Benedick whose endless witty sparring threatens to keep them apart forever. Directed by Josie Rourke, Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse, Much Ado About Nothing is one of Shakespeare’s great plays and reminds us all of the failings and triumphs of the human condition in our never ending search for perfect love.
Much Ado About Nothing
National Theatre Live: Coriolanus
Tim Van Someren, Josie Rourke
Tom Hiddleston, Mark Gatiss
When an old adversary threatens Rome, the city calls once more on her hero and defender: Coriolanus. But he has enemies at home too. Famine threatens the city, the citizens’ hunger swells to an appetite for change, and on returning from the field Coriolanus must confront the march of realpolitik and the voice of an angry people.
National Theatre Live: Coriolanus
National Theatre Live: The Habit of Art
Nicholas Hytner, Robin Lough
Richard Griffiths, Alex Jennings
National Theatre Live’s 2010 broadcast of Alan Bennett’s acclaimed play The Habit of Art, with Richard Griffiths, Alex Jennings and Frances de la Tour, returns to cinemas as part of the National Theatre's 50th anniversary celebrations. Benjamin Britten, sailing uncomfortably close to the wind with his new opera, Death in Venice, seeks advice from his former collaborator and friend, W H Auden. During this imagined meeting, their first for twenty-five years, they are observed and interrupted by, amongst others, their future biographer and a young man from the local bus station. Alan Bennett’s play is as much about the theatre as it is about poetry or music. It looks at the unsettling desires of two difficult men, and at the ethics of biography. It reflects on growing old, on creativity and inspiration, and on persisting when all passion’s spent: ultimately, on the habit of art.
National Theatre Live: The Habit of Art
National Theatre Live: Saint Joan
Josie Rourke, Tony Grech-Smith
Gemma Arterton, Matt Bardock
Josie Rourke directs Gemma Arterton as Joan of Arc in Bernard Shaw's electrifying classic. Performed at the Donmar Warehouse, and part of the NT Live series of broadcasts.
National Theatre Live: Saint Joan
Parade's End
Susanna White
Benedict Cumberbatch, Rebecca Hall
In the years before the First World War, three Britons are drawn into fraught and ultimately tragic relations: Anglican Christopher Tietjens, second son of the lord of the manor of Groby, Yorkshire, who is a disconsolate, Tory statistician in London; Catholic Sylvia Satterthwaite, his promiscuous and self-centered socialite wife who has married him only to hide the fact that their son is not really his; and freethinking Valentine Wannop, a young suffragette and daughter of a lady novelist, who is torn between her idealism and her attraction to "Chrissy". As the war works a profound change on Europe, and Chrissy is badly wounded in France, the conflict shatters and rearranges the lives of all three principals, as well as virtually everyone else in their elite circle.
Parade's End
The Queen
Stephen Frears
Хелен Миррен, Michael Sheen
The Queen is an intimate behind the scenes glimpse at the interaction between HM Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Tony Blair during their struggle, following the death of Diana, to reach a compromise between what was a private tragedy for the Royal family and the public's demand for an overt display of mourning.
The Queen
Beau Brummell: This Charming Man
Philippa Lowthorpe
James Purefoy, Hugh Bonneville
This BBC historical drama stars James Purefoy as Beau Brummell, the original sharp-dressed dandy of 18th-century London. A socialite responsible for inventing the modern suit, Brummell befriends and restyles Prince Regent of Wales.
Beau Brummell: This Charming Man
National Theatre Live: All's Well That Ends Well
Marianne Elliott
Ben Allen, Cassie Atkinson
National Theatre Live is an initiative operated by the Royal National Theatre in London, which broadcasts live via satellite, performances of their productions to movie theaters, cinemas and arts centres on the world. 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.
National Theatre Live: All's Well That Ends Well
The Lady in the Van
Nicholas Hytner
Maggie Smith, Alex Jennings
The true story of the relationship between Alan Bennett and the singular Miss Shepherd, a woman of uncertain origins who ‘temporarily’ parked her van in Bennett’s London driveway and proceeded to live there for 15 years.
The Lady in the Van
A Midsummer Night's Dream
David Kerr
John Hannah, Nonso Anozie
At the tyrannical court of Athens, pitiless dictator Theseus plans his wedding to Hippolyta, a prisoner of war, while young Hermia is sentenced to death by her own father for loving the wrong man. Meanwhile, in the town below, an amateur theatre group rehearses. And beyond Athens, in the wild woods, dark forces are stirring...
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Spooks: The Greater Good
Bharat Nalluri
Peter Firth, Kit Harington
During a handover to the head of counter-terrorism of MI5, Harry Pearce, a terrorist escapes custody. When Harry disappears soon after, his protégé is tasked with finding out what happened as an impending attack on London looms, and eventually uncovers a deadly conspiracy.
Spooks: The Greater Good
