National Theatre Live: As You Like It

Mar 30, 2016

3h 5m

★ 9.0

Overview

With her father the Duke banished and in exile, Rosalind and her cousin Celia leave their lives in the court behind them and journey into the Forest of Arden. There, released from convention, Rosalind experiences the liberating rush of transformation. Disguising herself as a boy, she embraces a different way of living and falls spectacularly in love.

Genres

Comedy

Production Companies

National Theatre

National Theatre Live: As You Like It Trailers

Cast

Celia

Patsy Ferran

Orlando

Joe Bannister

Rosalind

Rosalie Craig

Charles

Leon Annor

Oliver

Philip Arditti

Touchstone

Mark Benton

Jaques

Paul Chahidi

Amiens

Fra Fee

Adam

Patrick Godfrey

Phoebe

Gemma Lawrence

Court Lord / Forest Lord

Jonathan Coote

Henry IV usurps the English throne, sets in motion the factious War of the Roses and now faces a rebellion led by Northumberland scion Hotspur. Henry's heir, Prince Hal, is a ne'er-do-well carouser who drinks and causes mischief with his low-class friends, especially his rotund father figure, John Falstaff. To redeem his title, Hal may have to choose between allegiance to his real father and loyalty to his friend.

0.0

National Theatre Archive: I Want My Hat Back

Dec 31, 2015

Bear's hat is gone. He loves his hat. He wants it back. He asks all the animals in the forest, but no one has seen it. WAIT. He has seen it somewhere.

7.9

Kinky Boots: The Musical

Jun 25, 2019

Charlie is a factory owner struggling to save his family business, and Lola is a fabulous entertainer with a wildly exciting idea. With a little compassion and a lot of understanding, this unexpected pair learn to embrace their differences and create a line of sturdy stilettos unlike any the world has ever seen!

8.0

National Theatre Live: The Habit of Art

Apr 22, 2010

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.

7.6

National Theatre Live: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Jun 3, 2019

A feuding fairy King and Queen of the forest cross paths with four runaway lovers and a troupe of actors trying to rehearse a play. As their dispute grows, the magical royal couple meddle with mortal lives leading to love triangles, mistaken identities and transformations… with hilarious, but dark consequences.

8.4

National Theatre Live: Present Laughter

Nov 28, 2019

As he prepares to embark on an overseas tour, star actor Garry Essendine’s colourful life is in danger of spiralling out of control. Engulfed by an escalating identity crisis as his many and various relationships compete for his attention, Garry’s few remaining days at home are a chaotic whirlwind of love, sex, panic and soul-searching.

0.0

National Theatre Live: The Wife of Willesden

Dec 14, 2022

A proper local legend. Married five times. Mother. Lover. Aunt. Friend. Alvita will tell her life story to anyone in the pub – there’s no shame in her game. The question is: are you ready to hear it? Because this woman’s got the gift of the gab: she can rewrite mistakes into triumphs, turn pain into parables, and her love life’s an epic poem. They call her The Wife of Willesden... A play that celebrates the human knack for telling elaborate tales, especially about our own lives. Zadie Smith transports Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath to 21st Century North West London, directed by Kiln Theatre Artistic Director Indhu Rubasingh. A production from Kiln Theatre

6.9

Much Ado About Nothing

May 7, 1993

In this Shakespearean farce, Hero and her groom-to-be, Claudio, team up with Claudio's commanding officer, Don Pedro, the week before their wedding to hatch a matchmaking scheme. Their targets are sharp-witted duo Benedick and Beatrice -- a tough task indeed, considering their corresponding distaste for love and each other. Meanwhile, meddling Don John plots to ruin the wedding.

10.0

Private Lives

Dec 11, 2013

Elyot Chase and Amanda Prynne are glamorous, rich, reckless…and divorced. Five years later, their love for one another is unexpectedly rekindled when they take adjoining suites of a French hotel while honeymooning with their new spouses. This chance encounter instantly reignites their passion, and they fling themselves headlong into a whirlwind of love and lust once more, without a thought for partners present or turbulences past. This Chichester Festival Theatre production of Noël Coward’s Privates Lives was filmed live at London's Gielgud Theatre.

6.0

National Theatre Live: Much Ado About Nothing

Sep 8, 2022

Since the 1930s, the legendary family-run Hotel Messina has been visited by artists, celebrities and royalty.  When the current owner’s daughter falls for a dashing young soldier, the hallways are ringing with the sound of wedding bells.  However, not all the guests are in the mood for love, and a string of deceptions soon surround not only the young couple, but also the steadfastly single Beatrice and Benedick.

0.0

National Theatre Live: The Kitchen

Oct 6, 2011

The Kitchen, Arnold Wesker’s "extraordinary black comedy," is directed by Bijan Sheibani and features an ensemble cast of 29 actors. The production is set in a restaurant in 1950s London.

0.0

National Theatre Live: A Disappearing Number

Oct 14, 2010

The innovative interweaving of romance and math was conceived. The 2008 Olivier Award winner for Best New Play, it has toured the world and was recently performed in New York as part of the Lincoln Center Festival.

7.0

National Theatre Live: London Assurance

Jun 24, 2010

Grace has agreed to marry Sir Harcourt in return for his financial support of her family. At a house party in her father's place, Harcourt's son Charles also falls in love with Grace. When his father appears on the scene, he has to convince him that there is a case of mistaken identity and he is somebody else. Then Lady Gay Spanker, a married woman also visiting at the house, is persuaded by Charles to seduce his father and thus divert his attention from Grace. Much confusion and scheming ensues.

5.7

As You Like It

Sep 1, 2006

Witty, playful and utterly magical, the story is a compelling romantic adventure in which Rosalind and Orlando's celebrated courtship is played out against a backdrop of political rivalry, banishment and exile in the Forest of Arden - set in 19th-century Japan.

7.7

National Theatre Live: Fleabag

Sep 12, 2019

Fleabag may seem oversexed, emotionally unfiltered and self-obsessed, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. With family and friendships under strain and a guinea pig café struggling to keep afloat, Fleabag suddenly finds herself with nothing to lose.

7.0

Cinema Twain

Jun 30, 2016

Val Kilmer, master of reinvention, becomes Mark Twain, in a funny, moving, contemporary and reflective performance, based on the life of the man who was Samuel Clemens and on his writings as Mark Twain: his thoughts on politics, his family, his faith and God… Twain shows the greatness of his incomparable wit.

7.4

Company: A Musical Comedy

Feb 20, 2008

Set in modern upper-crust Manhattan, an exploration of love and commitment as seen through the eyes of a charming perpetual bachelor questioning his single state and his enthusiastically married, slightly envious friends.

0.0

National Theatre Live: Collaborators

Dec 1, 2011

John Hodge's Collaborators centers on an imaginary encounter between Joseph Stalin and the playwright Mikhail Bulgakov.

0.0

National Theatre Live: Travelling Light

Feb 9, 2012

In a remote village in Eastern Europe, around 1900, the young Motl Mendl is entranced by the flickering silent images on his father's cinematograph.

6.9

The Taming of the Shrew

Mar 8, 1967

Italy, 16th century. Petruchio, a choleric, lying and poor rural landowner from Verona, arrives in Padua in search of fortune and a wife, while Baptista, a wealthy merchant, announces that he will not allow Bianca, his youngest daughter, to marry until the temperamental and unruly Katherina, his eldest daughter, does.