National Theatre Live: King Lear

May 1, 2014

3h 25m

★ 7.1

Overview

An aged king decides to divide his kingdom between his three daughters, according to which of them is most eloquent in praising him. His favourite, Cordelia, says nothing. Simon Russell Beale, whose recent appearances at the National include Timon of Athens and Collaborators, takes the title role in Shakespeare’s tragedy.

Genres

Drama

Production Companies

National Theatre

National Theatre Live: King Lear Trailers

Cast

Lear, King of Britain

Simon Russell Beale

Goneril

Kate Fleetwood

Regan

Anna Maxwell Martin

Cordelia

Olivia Vinall

The Duke of Albany

Richard Clothier

The Duke of Cornwall

Michael Nardone

The Earl of Gloucester

Stephen Boxer

The Earl of Kent

Stanley Townsend

Edgar

Tom Brooke

Edmund

Sam Troughton

Oswald

Simon Manyonda

The Fool

Adrian Scarborough

Weller Martin and Fonsia Dorsey, two elderly residents at a nursing home for senior citizens, strike up an acquaintance. Neither seems to have any other friends, and they start to enjoy each other's company. Weller offers to teach Fonsia how to play gin rummy, and they begin playing a series of games that Fonsia always wins. Weller's inability to win a single hand becomes increasingly frustrating to him, while Fonsia becomes increasingly confident. While playing their games of gin, they engage in lengthy conversations about their families and their lives in the outside world. Gradually, each conversation becomes a battle, much like the ongoing gin games, as each player tries to expose the other's weaknesses, to belittle the other's life, and to humiliate the other thoroughly.

0.0

National Theatre Live: After Life

Nov 25, 2021

A group of strangers grapple with this impossible question as they find themselves in a bureaucratic waiting room between life and death. Encouraged by enigmatic officials, they must sift through their past lives to choose their forever. Adapted from Hirokazu Kore-eda's award-winning film, After Life is a surreal and powerfully human look at the way we view our lives, and a haunting meditation on what it is to live - and to die.

5.0

National Theatre Live: The Seagull

Nov 3, 2022

Emilia Clarke makes her West End debut as Nina in Anya Reiss’ unique 21st century modernisation of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, with direction by Jamie Lloyd.

8.5

National Theatre Live: Hedda Gabler

Mar 9, 2017

Hedda and Tesman have just returned from their honeymoon and the relationship is already in trouble. Trapped but determined, Hedda tries to control those around her, only to see her own world unravel.

8.7

National Theatre Live: Twelfth Night

Apr 6, 2017

A ship is wrecked on the rocks. Viola is washed ashore but her twin brother Sebastian is lost. Determined to survive on her own, she steps out to explore a new land. So begins a whirlwind of mistaken identity and unrequited love. The nearby households of Olivia and Orsino are overrun with passion. Even Olivia's upright housekeeper Malvolia is swept up in the madness. Where music is the food of love, and nobody is quite what they seem, anything proves possible.

6.1

National Theatre Live: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

Apr 20, 2017

Against the backdrop of Hamlet, two hapless minor characters, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, take centre stage. As the young double act stumble their way in and out of the action of Shakespeare’s iconic drama, they become increasingly out of their depth as their version of the story unfolds.

6.6

National Theatre Live: Obsession

May 11, 2017

Gino is a drifter, down-at-heel and magnetically handsome. At a road side restaurant he encounters husband and wife, Joseph and Hanna. Irresistibly attracted to each other, Gino and Hanna begin a fiery affair and plot to murder her husband. But, in this chilling tale of passion and destruction, the crime only serves to tear them apart.

7.4

National Theatre Live: Amadeus

Feb 2, 2017

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a rowdy young prodigy, arrives in Vienna, the music capital of the world – and he’s determined to make a splash. Awestruck by his genius, court composer Antonio Salieri has the power to promote his talent or destroy his name. Seized by obsessive jealousy he begins a war with Mozart, with music, and ultimately, with God.

0.0

National Theatre Live: 'Master Harold’… and the boys

Nov 19, 2019

St George's Park Tea Room, Port Elizabeth, 1950. On a long rainy afternoon, employees Sam and Willie practise their steps for the finals of the ballroom dancing championship. Hally arrives from school to hide out in his parents’ tea room. These two men have been unlikely best friends to Hally his whole life. But it is apartheid era South Africa: he’s Master Harold, and they are the boys. Tony Award-winning playwright Athol Fugard’s semi-autobiographical and blistering masterwork explores the nature of friendship, and the ways people are capable of hurting even those they love.

8.1

National Theatre Live: Vanya

Feb 22, 2024

Andrew Scott brings multiple characters to life in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, filmed live in West End, London. Hopes, dreams, and regrets are thrust into sharp focus in this one-man adaptation which explores the complexities of human emotions.

9.0

National Theatre Live: Salomé

Jun 22, 2017

An occupied desert nation. A radical from the wilderness on hunger strike. A girl whose mysterious dance will change the course of the world. This charged retelling turns the infamous biblical tale on its head, placing the girl we call Salomé at the centre of a revolution. Internationally acclaimed director Yaël Farber (Les Blancs, Hamlet) draws on multiple accounts to create her urgent, hypnotic production.

8.6

National Theatre Live: Angels In America — Part One: Millennium Approaches

Jul 20, 2017

The National Theatre's live theatrical production of Tony Kushner's two-part play 'Angels In America' about New Yorkers grappling with the AIDS crisis during the mid-1980s.

8.6

National Theatre Live: Angels In America — Part Two: Perestroika

Jul 27, 2017

America in the mid-1980s. In the midst of the AIDS crisis and a conservative Reagan administration, New Yorkers grapple with life and death, love and sex, heaven and hell. This new staging of Tony Kushner's multi-award winning two-part play, Angels In America: A Gay Fantasia On National Themes, is directed by Olivier and Tony award winning director Marianne Elliott.

9.0

National Theatre Live: Yerma

Aug 31, 2017

A woman is driven to the unthinkable by her desperate desire to have a child in Simon Stone’s radical production of Lorca’s achingly powerful masterpiece.

0.0

The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of One Family, Play One: Hungry

Mar 22, 2017

Hungry is the first in a three-play cycle introducing us to the Gabriels of Rhinebeck, New York. These three plays unfold in real time and track the lives of the Gabriels throughout the coming presidential election year. To the rhythm of peeling, chopping and mixing, Hungry places us in the center of the Gabriel’s kitchen. The family discusses their lives and disappointments, and the world at large and nearby. As they struggle against the fear of being left behind, the family attempts to find resilience in the face of loss.

7.8

Hamlet at Elsinore

Apr 15, 1964

The ghost of the King of Denmark tells his son Hamlet to avenge his murder by killing the new king, Hamlet's uncle. Hamlet feigns madness, contemplates life and death, and seeks revenge. His uncle, fearing for his life, also devises plots to kill Hamlet. An historic BBC production taped on location in and around Kronborg castle in Elsinore (Denmark), in which the play is set.

8.0

Revue Starlight ―The STAGE Junior High― Regalia

Oct 15, 2022

Siegfeld Institute of Music Junior High. An educational institution established for the purpose of training Rohedelstein, the future candidates for the roles of Edels. Two transfer students from Germany are due to enrol in the Junior High. One is Stella Takachiho, whose heritage is descended from Siegfeld's own prestigious family. The other is Shiro Ogami, Stella's exclusive maid. With the pair's transfer comes a drastic change in the fates of fellow Junior High students Ryoko Kobato, Minku Umibe, and Kuina Moriyasu. Liu Mei Fan works hard to meet the expectations of Akira Yukishiro and Michiru Otori, who are searching for a stage girl to carry Siegfeld on their backs. The ones who must entrust it, and the ones who must be entrusted with it—the symbol of the noble king, "Regalia", will end up...

7.9

Spirited Away: Live on Stage

Apr 23, 2023

A young girl, Chihiro, becomes trapped in a strange new world of spirits. When her parents undergo a mysterious transformation, she must call upon the courage she never knew she had to free her family. The film version of the stage production was shot during the play’s 2022 run at the Imperial Theatre in Tokyo.

7.0

National Theatre Live: Saint Joan

Feb 16, 2017

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.

0.0

Sty of the Blind Pig

May 29, 1974

After moving to Chicago from the South just as the civil rights movement takes hold, the members of an African American family led by steely matriarch Weedy Warren have different reactions to the social upheaval surrounding them.