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Henry V (Donmar Warehouse) @ Broadway Cinema via NT Live

In a pre-show interview that served as paratext to the NT Live broadcast of the Donmar’s Henry V, Kit Harington spoke candidly about his own experience of addiction and recovery. His substance use, at a time when his global fame was at a peak, reflected one response to the pressures and expectations of fame; his subsequent recovery allowed …

Twelfth Night (National Theatre) @ National Theatre At Home

The choice of the National Theatre to broadcast Simon Godwin’s Twelfth Night to homes to mark Shakespeare’s deathday on 23 April was a canny one; a crowd-pleasing comedy, with known quantities (Oliver Chris as Orsino and the headlining Tamsin Greig as a regendered Malvolia, the actors reunited from Green Wing) and an elaborate set courtesy of Soutra Gilmour. On a …

Richard II (Almeida/NT Live) @ Nottingham Broadway Cinema

For those who remember the Berliner Ensemble’s extraordinary Richard II, which came to the UK in 2006 as part of the RSC’s Complete Works Festival, Joe Hill-Gibbins’s new production of the play for the Almeida may have struck a chord. As with that production, this stripped back Richard II – barely 90 minutes long without …

Antony and Cleopatra (National Theatre/NT Live) @ Broadway Cinema

In November, Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo became the first pair of co-leads in over thirty years to win the two Best Actor prizes at the Evening Standard Theatre awards. The casting alone, perhaps, made this not entirely unexpected; two Oscar-nominated actors in a big prestige National Theatre production directed by Simon Godwin, in one …

Hamlet (Sonia Friedman Productions/NT Live) @ The Light, Leeds

Fortunately, given that I was extremely poorly during last night’s screening, everyone and their doctorate seems to have written about Hamlet already. There are really great pieces out there by Tom Cornford, Holger Schott Syme, Eoin Price, not to mention most of the newspapers at least twice, after the ‘controversy’ (read: storm in a teacup) …

Everyman (National Theatre/NT Live) @ The Broadway Cinema, Nottingham

The introduction to Chiwitel Ejiofor’s Everyman and his friends, a sequence that must have taken up a good ten minutes of drug snorting, swearing, shagging, drinking, fighting, dancing and selfie-snapping, set out Rufus Norris and Javier de Frutos’s new Everyman as achingly, perhaps even desperately, ‘contemporary’. Distilling the vices of the modern world (particularly the …

King Lear (National Theatre/NT Live) @ The Broadway, Nottingham

This is the second time NT Live has broadcast a version of King Lear. The first, back in 2011, was the Donmar’s extraordinary pared-down version starring Derek Jacobi, drawing its power from the intimate, bare set and performances that utilised whispers to wonderful effect. By contrast, Sam Mendes’ new production for the Olivier was an …

Coriolanus (Donmar/NT Live) @ The Broadway, Nottingham

The Hiddleston effect is a very tangible thing. As the stalwart Emma Freud reminded international audiences in what was, frankly, the most banal interval interview NT Live has yet managed (which is saying something), Tom Hiddleston was recently voted Sexiest Man Alive by MTV, and his Coriolanus attracted the youngest audience I’ve yet seen to …

Othello (National Theatre) @ NT Live

When digging out my ticket for the NT Live screening of Othello at Nottingham’s Broadway, I had to go into my archived email from four months ago. Booking for these screenings has become even more competitive, and as I tweeted afterwards I was disappointed to see so few young people in the audience. The extreme …

Digital Programmes – The Comedy of Errors (NT Live)

Writing about web page http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/?lid=49018&utm_source=wordfly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NTLiveNewsletter080312-Tess&sSourceCode=5371 When I attended the live screening of The Comedy of Errors last week, I was disappointed to find that only free cast lists were available in the foyer – there was not the opportunity to buy a physical programme, as available in the theatre. However, I realised yesterday that the …