Running Time: 185 mins (incl interval)

BBFC Certificate: As Live 15 tbc
recorded performance captured live in front of a theatre audience.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

By Tennessee Williams

Directed by Benedict Andrews

Tennessee Williams’ twentieth century masterpiece Cat on a Hot Tin Roof played a strictly limited season in London’s West End in 2017. Following his smash hit production of A Streetcar Named Desire, Benedict Andrews’ ‘thrilling revival’ (New York Times) stars Sienna Miller alongside, Jack O’Connell and Colm Meaney.

On a steamy night in Mississippi, a Southern family gather at their cotton plantation to celebrate Big Daddy’s birthday. The scorching heat is almost as oppressive as the lies they tell. Brick and Maggie dance round the secrets and sexual tensions that threaten to destroy their marriage. With the future of the family at stake, which version of the truth is real – and which will win out?

★★★★
"A bold reimagining…innovative and powerfully acted"
Sunday Times

★★★★
"A brilliant, lacerating account of the play… unforgettable"
The Independent

★★★★
"Miller and O’Connell get to a raw and naked truth"
The Metro

Tennessee Williams’ twentieth century masterpiece Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a searing, poetic story of a family’s fight for survival. The cast includes Sienna Miller (High-Rise, American Sniper), Jack O’Connell (Money Monster, Skins) and Colm Meaney (Layer Cake, Star Trek), and is directed by Benedict Andrews, known for his smash hit A Streetcar Named Desire which was broadcast through NT Live in 2014. Produced by the Young Vic following the success of Yerma, the show has had a limited 12-week run in the Apollo Theatre in the West End, and NT Live is very excited to be capturing it to share with audiences.

Running Time: TBC 135mins

BBFC Certificate: As Live 12A

Ben Whishaw (The Danish Girl, Skyfall, Hamlet) and Michelle Fairley (Fortitude, Game of Thrones) play Brutus and Cassius, David Calder (The Lost City of Z, The Hatton Garden Job) plays Caesar and David Morrissey (The Missing, Hangmen, The Walking Dead) is Mark Antony. Broadcast live from The Bridge Theatre, London.

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.

Please note that Julius Caesar will contain strobe lighting.

Running Time: 210 mins tbc (incl interval)

BBFC Certificate: 12A

Macbeth

The ruined aftermath of a bloody civil war. Ruthlessly fighting to survive, the Macbeths are propelled towards the crown by forces of elemental darkness.

Shakespeare’s most intense and terrifying tragedy, directed by Rufus Norris (The Threepenny Opera, London Road), will see Rory Kinnear (Young Marx, Othello) and Anne-Marie Duff (Oil, Suffragette) return to the National Theatre to play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.

Running Time: TBC

BBFC Certificate: 12A

Julie

by Polly Stenham

after Strindberg

Vanessa Kirby (The Crown, NT Live: A Streetcar Named Desire) and Eric Kofi Abrefa (The Amen Corner) feature in the cast of this brand new production, directed by Carrie Cracknell (NT Live: The Deep Blue Sea) and broadcast live from the National Theatre to cinemas.

Wild and newly single, Julie throws a late night party. In the kitchen, Jean and Kristina clean up as the celebration heaves above them. Crossing the threshold, Julie initiates a power game with Jean – which rapidly descends into a savage fight for survival.

This new version of August Strinberg’s play Miss Julie, written by Polly Stenham, remains shocking and fiercely relevant in its new setting of contemporary London.

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: 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.