National Theatre Live: The Audience

On November 17, 2012, Oscar-winning French actress Marion Cotillard joined the Barcelona Symphony and Catalonia National Orchestra for a performance of Arthur Honegger’s oratorio Joan of Arc at the Stake (Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher) at the L'Auditori de Barcelona in Spain, broadcast live on Medici.tv. By Swiss composer Arthur Honegger, Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher (1938) is an imposing oratorio. The libretto is a highly original creation by French poet and playwright Paul Claudel, who dramatises the last moments of the martyr's life. Originally written for actress Ida Rubinstein, the oratorio is written as a flashback in which Joan recalls her life, just before she dies. Honegger creates visually evocative ambiances and fills the orchestra with new sounds (saxophones, ondes Martenot). The initial prologue to the piece was added in 1944 as a symbol of the resistance during the Nazi occupation of France: again, Joan goes beyond her own story.

A week in the life of the exploited, child newspaper sellers in turn-of-the-century New York. When their publisher, Joseph Pulitzer, tries to squeeze a little more profit out of their labours, they organize a strike, only to be confronted with the Pulitzer's hard-ball tactics.

The Last of Mrs. Lincoln depicts the final seventeen years of Mary Todd Lincoln's life, following her husband's assassination.

A comedy musical stage version of the Phantom of the Opera, filmed live on-stage during a performance in Florida.

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.

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.

Willy Loman, an aging, failing salesman, struggles to accept reality and his failure to achieve the American Dream.

An immersive film installation by Cally Spooner. In this work, a musical for six continuously rolling cameras, a black box soundstage and its inhabitants, are recorded in a single take. The mechanics of the shoot (cameras, microphones, mixing boards, chromakey screens and crew) remain as present as the performers they capture. Cast and crew become a constant-motion human backdrop, pragmatically recomposing scene-changes through lighting cues, voice, body movement, or continuous shifts of filmic apparatus and props. The semblance of a post-production edit arrives through the organisation and orchestration of bodies on set. Delivered by a chorus line of women, the film gossips about various celebrities, athletes and politicians who have outsourced their performances to different technologies.

The ultimate royal family crisis. Prince Hamlet's father is dead, poisoned by his uncle, who has usurped the throne and married his mother, the Queen. When the dead King's ghost appears, commanding his son to revenge his foul and most unnatural murder, Hamlet is set on a course of action that can only end in the destruction of a dynasty and his own extinction.

A monarch ordained by God to lead his people. But he is also a man of very human weakness. A man whose vanity threatens to divide the great houses of England and drag his people into a dynastic civil war that will last 100 years.

Christopher, fifteen years old, has an extraordinary brain – exceptional at maths while ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. When he falls under suspicion of killing Mrs Shears' dog Wellington, he records each fact about the event in the book he is writing to solve the mystery of the murder. But his detective work, forbidden by his father, takes him on a frightening journey that upturns his world.

Grieving the loss of the family shop and their dreams destroyed, Denise and daughter-in-law Carly are left to pick up the pieces of their relatives' mistakes. Will all be forgiven? This thought-provoking drama explores family dynamics, race, colonialism and cancel culture.

One family, the heart of the American dream. When wartime delivers profits for Joe Heller, it comes at a price when his partner is charged with criminal manufacturing deals, and his eldest son goes missing in action. Will peacetime bring peace of mind, or will he be confronted by the consequence of his actions?

Three friends who bonded over their radical beliefs in the 1930s reunite after becoming estranged over a book one of them wrote.

Musical production of the space epic Aniara.

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.

New York, 1971. There’s a party on the stage of the Weismann Theatre. Tomorrow the iconic building will be demolished. Thirty years after their final performance, the Follies girls gather to have a few drinks, sing a few songs and lie about themselves.

Caesar returns in triumph to Rome and the people pour out of their homes to celebrate. Alarmed by the autocrat’s popularity, the educated élite conspire to bring him down. After his assassination, civil war erupts on the streets of the capital. Nicholas Hytner’s production will thrust the audience into the street party that greets Caesar’s return, the congress that witnesses his murder, the rally that assembles for his funeral and the chaos that explodes in its wake.

A mother struggles with worsening bipolar disorder and the effects that managing her illness has on her family. The PBS Great Performances recording of the West End transfer to Wyndham's Theatre (from The Donmar Warehouse) in 2024.

Tennessee Williams’ twentieth century masterpiece Cat on a Hot Tin Roof played a strictly limited season in London’s West End in 2017. An alcoholic ex-football player drinks his days away, having failed to come to terms with his sexuality and his real feelings for his football buddy who died after an ambiguous accident. His wife is crucified by her desperation to make him desire her: but he resists the affections of his wife. His reunion with his father—who is dying of cancer—jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.