Running Time: TBC

BBFC Certificate: 12A

King Lear

By William Shakespeare

★★★★★ ‘Ian McKellen reigns supreme in this triumphant production.’ (Daily Telegraph)

Broadcast live from London’s West End, see Ian McKellen’s ‘extraordinarily moving portrayal’ (Independent) of King Lear in cinemas.

Chichester Festival Theatre’s production received five-star reviews for its sell-out run, and transfers to the West End for a limited season.  Jonathan Munby directs this ‘nuanced and powerful’ (The Times) contemporary retelling of Shakespeare’s tender, violent, moving and shocking play.

Considered by many to be the greatest tragedy ever written, 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.

Running Time: 113 mins

BBFC Certificate: 12A

The Post

A cover-up that spanned four U.S. Presidents pushed the country's first female newspaper publisher and a hard-driving editor to join an unprecedented battle between the press and the government.

Running Time: 170 mins

BBFC Certificate: 12A

Allelujah!
by Alan Bennett

‘Leaves you bobbing on a wave of happiness’ Independent

Alan Bennett’s sharp and hilarious new play is ‘just what the doctor ordered’ (Daily Telegraph). Filmed live at London’s Bridge Theatre during its limited run, don’t miss this ‘rousing chorus line for the NHS’ (Observer) in your local cinema.

The Beth, an old fashioned cradle-to-grave hospital serving a town on the edge of the Pennines, is threatened with closure as part of an efficiency drive. A documentary crew, eager to capture its fight for survival, follows the daily struggle to find beds on the Dusty Springfield Geriatric Ward, and the triumphs of the old people’s choir.

Alan Bennett’s celebrated plays include The History Boys, The Lady in the Van and The Madness of George III, all of which were also seen on film. Allelujah! is his tenth collaboration with award-winning director Nicholas Hytner.

Running Time: 118 mins

BBFC Certificate: 15

The Shape of Water

At a top secret research facility in the 1960s, a lonely janitor forms a unique relationship with an amphibious creature that is being held in captivity.

Running Time: TBC

BBFC Certificate: 12A

The Madness of George III
by Alan Bennett

Multi-award-winning drama The Madness of George III will be broadcast live to cinemas, in National Theatre Live’s first ever broadcast from Nottingham Playhouse.

Written by one of Britain’s best-loved playwrights Alan Bennett (The History Boys, The Lady in the Van), this epic play was also adapted into a BAFTA Award-winning film following its premiere on stage in 1991.

The cast of this new production includes Olivier Award-winners Mark Gatiss (Sherlock, Wolf Hall, NT Live Coriolanus) in the title role, and Adrian Scarborough (Gavin and Stacey, Upstairs Downstairs, After the Dance).

It’s 1786 and King George III is the most powerful man in the world. But his behaviour is becoming increasingly erratic as he succumbs to fits of lunacy. With the King’s mind unravelling at a dramatic pace, ambitious politicians and the scheming Prince of Wales threaten to undermine the power of the Crown, and expose the fine line between a King and a man.

Running Time: 121 mins

BBFC Certificate: 12A

The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society

A writer forms an unexpected bond with the residents of Guernsey Island in the aftermath of World War II, when she decides to write a book about their experiences during the war.

Running Time: TBC

BBFC Certificate: 12A

Antony & Cleopatra

by William Shakespeare 

Broadcast live from the National Theatre, Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo play Shakespeare’s famous fated couple in his great tragedy of politics, passion and power.

Caesar and his assassins are dead. General Mark Antony now rules alongside his fellow defenders of Rome. But at the fringes of a war-torn empire the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra and Mark Antony have fallen fiercely in love. In a tragic fight between devotion and duty, obsession becomes a catalyst for war.

Director Simon Godwin returns to National Theatre Live screens with this hotly anticipated production, following broadcasts of Twelfth Night, Man and Superman and The Beaux’ Stratagem.

Running Time: 114 mins

BBFC Certificate: PG

Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again

Five years after the events of Mamma Mia! (2008), Sophie prepares for the grand reopening of the Hotel Bella Donna as she learns more about her mother's past.

Running Time: TBC

BBFC Certificate: 12A

I’m Not Running

by David Hare

 I’m Not Running is an explosive new play by David Hare, premiering at the National Theatre and broadcast live to cinemas. 

Pauline Gibson has spent her life as a doctor, the inspiring leader of a local health campaign. When she crosses paths with her old boyfriend, a stalwart loyalist in Labour Party politics, she’s faced with an agonising decision.

What’s involved in sacrificing your private life and your piece of mind for something more than a single issue? Does she dare?

Hare was recently described by The Washington Post as ‘the premiere political dramatist writing in English’. His other work includes Pravda and Skylight, broadcast by National Theatre Live in 2014.