Fired from his skiffle band, Francis Henshall becomes minder to Roscoe Crabbe, a small time East End hood, now in Brighton to collect £6,000 from his fiancée’s dad. But Roscoe is really his sister Rachel posing as her own dead brother, who’s been killed by her boyfriend Stanley Stubbers. Holed up at The Cricketers’ Arms, the permanently ravenous Francis spots the chance of an extra meal ticket and takes a second job with one Stanley Stubbers, who is hiding from the police and waiting to be re-united with Rachel. To prevent discovery, Francis must keep his two guvnors apart. Simple.
The Tale of Fedot, the Shooter (1988)
Wanting to destroy the Archer and marry his wife, the King comes up with tests for the hero.
Newsies (2017)
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.
National Theatre Live: Travelling Light (2012)
In a remote village in Eastern Europe, around 1900, the young Motl Mendl is entranced by the flickering silent images on his father's cinematograph.
National Theatre Live: The Comedy of Errors (2012)
Separated at birth, two sets of twins collide in the same city for one crazy day, as multiple mistaken identities lead to confusion on a grand scale.
Cinema Twain (2016)
Val Kilmer, master of reinvention, becomes Mark Twain, in a funny, moving, contemporary and reflective performance, based on the life of the man who was Samuel Clemens and on his writings as Mark Twain: his thoughts on politics, his family, his faith and God… Twain shows the greatness of his incomparable wit.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead (2009)
Julian Marsh is an out of work ladies' man who lands a job directing a bizarre adaptation of Hamlet. After casting his best friend and his ex-girlfriend in the show, Julian finds himself in the middle of a two thousand year old conspiracy that explains the connection between Shakespeare, the Holy Grail and some seriously sexy vampires. It turns out that the play was actually written by a master vampire name Theo Horace and it's up to Julian to recover the Grail in order to reverse the vampire's curse...If only being undead wasn't so much God-damned fun!
Goodnight, Mrs Seeholzer! (1978)
The Hänggis are busily preparing for the wedding of their eldest daughter Jacqueline to Victor, son of Stephan Haberthür, with whom Heini Hänggi is planning a business merger. Then in walks a total stranger - Mrs. Seeholzer - who announces she saw in a vision that Jacqueline would not marry Victor. She then establishes her vision's accuracy by correctly predicting various hilarious domestic accidents... Wonderful play for little theatres.
Oh, Hello on Broadway (2017)
Two delusional geriatrics reveal curious pasts, share a love of tuna and welcome a surprise guest in this filming of the popular Broadway comedy show.
Le Fusible (2017)
Paul, a 45-year-old businessman, is about to radically change his life ... He organized everything down to the smallest detail the lucrative sale of his website to a Russian company, his divorce and his departure on a paradise island with his mistress .... The sole confidant of his stratagem and his plans for the next day: his friend Michel, a naive and blundering computer genius who follows Paul like a beacon ... But on the eve of this fateful day , everything changes: a short circuit causes the oven to explode just when Paul is in the kitchen. He came out unscathed, but against all odds, completely lost his memory ... Recorded at Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens
Är du inte riktigt fisk? (1989)
Cissi lives in an expensive apartment in Östermalm, in order to pay for it she keeps two lovers, an ad man and a fishmonger, who write her checks for her various expenses. Everything goes smoothly until the two men show up at the same time.
National Theatre Live: The Wife of Willesden (2022)
A proper local legend. Married five times. Mother. Lover. Aunt. Friend. Alvita will tell her life story to anyone in the pub – there’s no shame in her game. The question is: are you ready to hear it? Because this woman’s got the gift of the gab: she can rewrite mistakes into triumphs, turn pain into parables, and her love life’s an epic poem. They call her The Wife of Willesden... A play that celebrates the human knack for telling elaborate tales, especially about our own lives. Zadie Smith transports Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath to 21st Century North West London, directed by Kiln Theatre Artistic Director Indhu Rubasingh. A production from Kiln Theatre
National Theatre Live: Dick Whittington – A Pantomime for 2020 (2020)
First staged at Lyric Hammersmith in 2018 and freshly updated for 2020, Ned Bennett directs this wild and inventive production and explores what it is like to come from a small town and arrive in a big city today. With a host of colourful characters, irreverent jokes, talking animals and popular songs this is Dick Whittington as never seen before.
National Theatre Live: Collaborators (2011)
John Hodge's Collaborators centers on an imaginary encounter between Joseph Stalin and the playwright Mikhail Bulgakov.
National Theatre Live: The Kitchen (2011)
The Kitchen, Arnold Wesker’s "extraordinary black comedy," is directed by Bijan Sheibani and features an ensemble cast of 29 actors. The production is set in a restaurant in 1950s London.
National Theatre Live: A Disappearing Number (2010)
The innovative interweaving of romance and math was conceived. The 2008 Olivier Award winner for Best New Play, it has toured the world and was recently performed in New York as part of the Lincoln Center Festival.
National Theatre Live: London Assurance (2010)
Grace has agreed to marry Sir Harcourt in return for his financial support of her family. At a house party in her father's place, Harcourt's son Charles also falls in love with Grace. When his father appears on the scene, he has to convince him that there is a case of mistaken identity and he is somebody else. Then Lady Gay Spanker, a married woman also visiting at the house, is persuaded by Charles to seduce his father and thus divert his attention from Grace. Much confusion and scheming ensues.
In the Bleak Midwinter (1995)
Out of work actor Joe volunteers to help try and save his sister's local church for the community by putting on a Christmas production of Hamlet, somewhat against the advice of his agent Margaretta. As the cast he assembles are still available even at Christmas and are prepared to do it on a 'profit sharing' basis (that is, they may not get paid anything) he cannot expect - and does not get - the cream of the cream. But although they all bring their own problems and foibles along, something bigger starts to emerge in the perhaps aptly named village of Hope.
Back to Back (1959)
These dueling one-act comedies highlight the work of playwright John Mortimer. In "The Dock Brief," an ill-prepared attorney is put to the test when his client confesses to killing his wife. In "What Shall We Tell Caroline?" a father with good intentions tries to protect his wife and daughter from the bad things in life.
National Theatre Live: Twelfth Night (2017)
A ship is wrecked on the rocks. Viola is washed ashore but her twin brother Sebastian is lost. Determined to survive on her own, she steps out to explore a new land. So begins a whirlwind of mistaken identity and unrequited love. The nearby households of Olivia and Orsino are overrun with passion. Even Olivia's upright housekeeper Malvolia is swept up in the madness. Where music is the food of love, and nobody is quite what they seem, anything proves possible.