The National Theatre adds King Lear and Young Marx to on-demand streaming platform
The National Theatre launches an exciting upcoming season on its streaming platform, with a host of productions to be made available on National Theatre at Home. Available from today is Ian McKellen’s moving portrayal of Shakespeare’s King Lear, presented by Chichester Festival Theatre and Ambassador Theatre Group Productions, captured live during its sell-out transfer at the Duke of York’s Theatre in 2014, and Richard Bean and Clive Coleman’s revolutionary comedy, Young Marx, a 2017 production from the Bridge Theatre reuniting the creative team behind One Man, Two Guvnors, starring Rory Kinnear as Marx and Oliver Chris as Engels.
This autumn, plays straight from the NT’s stages and recent broadcasts from National Theatre Live will also be added to the platform. New productions include the Bridge Theatre’s The Book of Dust – La Belle Sauvage, a gripping adaptation of Phillip Pullman’s prequel to His Dark Materials trilogy, adapted by Bryony Lavery; from the NT, see Emlyn William’s The Corn is Green, starring Nicola Walker in its first London revival for 35 years – available with Welsh subtitles for the first time on NT at Home – and Francesca Martinez’s powerful new play, All of Us, inspired by the real life experiences of disabled people. At the end of the year, the iconic and multi-award-winning production of War Horse, based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo, will also be available on demand for a limited time only.
Audiences in the UK will receive access to brand new NT Live broadcasts, with Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt, the Olivier Award-winning drama from Sonia Friedman Productions, and David Hare’s blazing Straight Line Crazy, with Ralph Fiennes leading as the controversial New Yorker, from the Bridge Theatre. Alongside the NT’s 2011 production of Frankenstein, adapted by Nick Dear based on the novel by Mary Shelley, directed by Danny Boyle, which sees Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller alternating between the lead roles.
Launched during the pandemic in December 2020, the platform offers a huge selection of theatre to watch anywhere, anytime and is now the leading digital streaming service for British theatre in the UK. New plays are added to NT at Home each month, with 58 productions now streaming, all available with captions. There are 38 titles with audio-description and 2 titles with BSL on the platform. Find the full list here.
National Theatre at Home is available at ntathome.com, with single titles to rent from £5.99 – £7.99, a monthly subscription for £9.99 or a yearly subscription for £99.99. Gift membership is also available as a one/two/three month or one-year subscription.
Bloomberg Philanthropies is Headline Sponsor of National Theatre at Home.
National Theatre at Home is also supported by The Linbury Trust.
#NationalTheatreatHome
A full list of productions announced today is below.
King Lear
Available now
by William Shakespeare
Considered by many to be the greatest tragedy ever written, Ian McKellen is King Lear in Shakespeare’s tender, violent, moving and shocking play.
King Lear sees two ageing fathers – one a King, one his courtier – reject the children who truly love them. Their blindness unleashes a tornado of pitiless ambition and treachery, as family and state are plunged into a violent power struggle with bitter ends.
Johnathan Munby directs this ‘nuanced and powerful’ (The Times) contemporary retelling.
Filmed by National Theatre Live. A production from Chichester Festival Theatre.
Available at least until 7 September 2023.
Young Marx
Available now
by Richard Bean and Clive Coleman
Rory Kinnear is Marx and Oliver Chris is Engels, in this comedy directed by Nicholas Hytner and reuniting the creative team behind the hit comedy One Man, Two Guvnors.
1850, and Europe’s most feared terrorist is hiding in Dean Street, Soho. Broke, restless and horny, the thirty-two-year-old revolutionary is a frothing combination of intellectual brilliance, invective, satiric wit, and child-like emotional illiteracy.
Creditors, spies, rival revolutionary factions and prospective seducers of his beautiful wife all circle like vultures. His writing blocked, his marriage dying, his friend Engels in despair at his wasted genius, his only hope is a job on the railway. But there’s still no one in the capital who can show you a better night on the piss than Karl Heinrich Marx.
Filmed by National Theatre Live. A production from the Bridge Theatre.
Available at least until 7 September 2023.
The Book of Dust – La Belle Sauvage
Available from October 2022
adapted by Bryony Lavery, based on the novel by Phillip Pullman
Set twelve years before his epic His Dark Materials trilogy, this gripping adaptation revisits Phillip Pullman‘s fantastical world in which waters are rising and storms are brewing.
Two young people and their dæmons, with everything at stake, find themselves at the centre of a terrifying manhunt. In their care is a tiny child called Lyra Belacqua, and in that child lies the fate of the future. And as the waters rise around them, powerful adversaries conspire for mastery of Dust: salvation to some, the source of infinite corruption to others.
Eighteen years after his ground-breaking production of His Dark Materials at the National Theatre, director Nicholas Hytner returns to Pullman’s parallel universe, in a new adaptation by Bryony Lavery. Captured live from London’s Bridge Theatre.
Filmed by National Theatre Live. A production from the Bridge Theatre.
Leopoldstadt
Available from October 2022 (UK only)
by Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard’s ‘momentous new play’ (Financial Times), Leopoldstadt is a passionate drama of love, family and endurance.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Leopoldstadt was the old, crowded Jewish quarter of Vienna, Austria. But Hermann Merz, a factory owner and baptised Jew now married to Catholic Gretl, has moved up in the world.
Follow his family’s story across half a century, passing through the convulsions of war, revolution, impoverishment, annexation by Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. A company of 40 actors represent each generation of the family in this epic, but intimate play, directed by Patrick Marber.
Filmed by National Theatre Live. A production from Sonia Friedman Productions.
Frankenstein
Available to UK audiences for the first time from October 2022
by Nick Dear, based on the novel by Mary Shelley
Directed by Academy Award-winner Danny Boyle, Frankenstein features Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller alternating between the roles of Victor Frankenstein and his creation.
Childlike in his innocence but grotesque in form, Frankenstein’s bewildered creature is cast out into a hostile universe by his horror-struck maker. Meeting with cruelty wherever he goes, the increasingly desperate and vengeful Creature determines to track down his creator and strike a terrifying deal.
Scientific responsibility, parental neglect, cognitive development and the nature of good and evil, are embedded within this thrilling and deeply disturbing classic tale.
Filmed by National Theatre Live. A production from the National Theatre.
The Corn is Green
Available from November 2022
by Emlyn Williams
Miss Lily Moffat arrives in rural North Wales, determined to help young local miners out of poverty by teaching them to read and write.
Lily soon spots talent in the unruly Morgan Evans, but when she faces growing resistance from the community, she does everything in her power to forge him a new future.
Emlyn Williams’ semi-autobiographical play is given a bold new staging by director Dominic Cooke, in its first London revival for 35 years. Nicola Walker plays the visionary Miss Moffat.
This production will be available to stream with Welsh subtitles.
Captured at the National Theatre. A production from the National Theatre.
War Horse
Available from December 2022
adapted by Nick Stafford, based on the beloved novel by Michael Morpurgo
At the outbreak of World War One, Joey, young Albert’s beloved horse, is sold to the Cavalry and shipped to France. He’s soon caught up in enemy fire, and fate takes him on an extraordinary journey, serving on both sides before finding himself alone in no man’s land. Albert, who remained on his parents’ Devon farm, cannot forget Joey. Though still not old enough to enlist he embarks on a treacherous mission to find him and bring him home.
Based on the beloved novel by Michael Morpurgo, this powerfully moving and imaginative drama, filled with stirring music and songs, is a show of phenomenal inventiveness. At its heart are astonishing life-sized horses by South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company, who bring breathing, galloping, charging horses to thrilling life on stage.
War Horse is an unforgettable theatrical event which takes audiences on an extraordinary journey from the fields of rural Devon to the trenches of First World War France.
Filmed by National Theatre Live. A production from the National Theatre, in association with the Handspring Puppet Company.
Straight Line Crazy
Available this Autumn/Winter (UK only)
by David Hare
Ralph Fiennes leads the cast in David Hare’s blazing account of the most powerful man in New York, a master manipulator whose legacy changed the city forever. Nicholas Hytner directs this exhilarating new play.
For forty uninterrupted years, Robert Moses exploited those in office through a mix of charm and intimidation. Motivated at first by a determination to improve the lives of New York City’s workers, he created parks, bridges and 627 miles of expressway to connect the people to the great outdoors.
Faced with resistance by protest groups campaigning for a very different idea of what the city should become, will the weakness of democracy be exposed in the face of his charismatic conviction?
Filmed by National Theatre Live. A production from the Bridge Theatre.
All of Us
Available this Autumn/Winter
by Francesca Martinez
From Francesca Martinez, the award-winning author, comedian and actor, comes an unmissable new play directed by Ian Rickson.
Jess has a great life: a job she loves, a sharp sense of humour and a close group of friends.
When austerity threatens the world she has worked hard to build, Jess makes a stand to protect those she holds most dear.
Inspired by real life experiences of disabled people in the UK, All of Us captures the humour, sadness and joy of everyday life, and is a passionate and timely look at the human cost of abandoning those who struggle to fit in.
Captured at the National Theatre. A production from the National Theatre.
