National Theatre Live: This House

May 15, 2013

2h 39m

★ 8.5

Overview

It's February 1974. Ted Heath's Conservative government has been ousted. But only just. In the hung Parliament, Labour manages to form a minority government by sending its whips out wheeling and dealing with the Liberals, Scottish Nationalists and Northern Irish politicians. But this fragile alliance lasts only until October, when another election is called. This time, Labour win with a tiny majority of just three. Now things get tougher as old cross-Party agreements break down and even sick and dying MPs are wheeled into the chamber to cast their votes! James Graham's acclaimed new play whisks us back to the days of the UK's previous hung Parliament, when politics got really dirty in the battle for power.

Genres

Comedy

Drama

Production Companies

National Theatre

National Theatre Live: This House Trailers

Cast

Michael Cocks

Vincent Franklin

Bob Mellish

Phil Daniels

Ann Taylor

Lauren O'Neill

Humphrey Atkins

Julian Wadham

Jack Weatherill

Charles Edwards

Walter Harrison

Reece Dinsdale

Joe Harper

David Hounslow

Clockmaker / Peebles / Redditch / Birmingham Perry Barr

Gunnar Cauthery

Woolwich West / Batley & Morley / Western Isles

Christopher Godwin

Walsall North / Serjeant at ArmsAct 1 / Speaker Act 2 / Plymouth Sutton

Andrew Havill

Rochester & Chatham / Welwyn & Hatfield / Coventry South West / Lady Batley

Helena Lymbery

Paddington South / Chelmsford / South Ayrshire / Henley

Matthew Pidgeon

The Bergers, a blue-collar Jewish family living in an overstuffed tenement and undone by the Depression, struggle through hard times and dream of a better future in this 1972 production of Clifford Odets' pungent play. Personalities and politics clash as Odets' mélange of characters try to survive on pennies a day. Walter Matthau plays cynical World War I amputee Moe Axelrod, and Leo Fuchs portrays the family's iron-willed leftist grandfather.

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