National Theatre Live: Hamlet

Tony Richardson's Hamlet is based on his own stage production. Filmed entirely within the Roundhouse in London (a disused train shed), it is shot almost entirely in close up, focusing the attention on faces and language rather than action.

Winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor, Sir Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet continues to be the most compelling version of Shakespeare’s beloved tragedy. Olivier is at his most inspired—both as director and as the melancholy Dane himself—as he breathes new life into the words of one of the world’s greatest dramatists.

David Tennant stars in a film of the Royal Shakespeare Company's award-winning production of Shakespeare's great play. Director Gregory Doran's modern-dress production was hailed by the critics as thrilling, fast-moving and, in parts, very funny.

IN 1988, rising star Kenneth Branagh tackled the role of Shakespeare’s prince of Denmark for the first time in his professional career under the guidance of celebrated actor Derek Jacobi. Narrated by Patrick Stewart, this hour-long film documents how Kenneth Branagh and Derek Jacobi, two intelligent and passionate men, found new depths in Shakespeare’s classic drama, Hamlet. Filmmakers Mark Olshaker and Larry Klein follow the company through four weeks of rehearsals, from the first read-throughs to opening night.

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.

To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the National Theatre of Great Britain presents National Theatre: 50 Years on Stage, bringing together the best British actors for a unique evening of unforgettable performances, broadcast live from London to cinemas around the world.

National Theatre Live’s 2010 broadcast of Alan Bennett’s acclaimed play The Habit of Art, with Richard Griffiths, Alex Jennings and Frances de la Tour, returns to cinemas as part of the National Theatre's 50th anniversary celebrations. Benjamin Britten, sailing uncomfortably close to the wind with his new opera, Death in Venice, seeks advice from his former collaborator and friend, W H Auden. During this imagined meeting, their first for twenty-five years, they are observed and interrupted by, amongst others, their future biographer and a young man from the local bus station. Alan Bennett’s play is as much about the theatre as it is about poetry or music. It looks at the unsettling desires of two difficult men, and at the ethics of biography. It reflects on growing old, on creativity and inspiration, and on persisting when all passion’s spent: ultimately, on the habit of art.

National Theatre Live is an initiative operated by the Royal National Theatre in London, which broadcasts live via satellite, performances of their productions to movie theaters, cinemas and arts centres on the world. The second production, All's Well That Ends Well, showed at a total of around 300 screens, and today, the number of venues that show NT Live productions has grown to around 700.

Performing from within the walls of a deconsecrated Manchester church, Kenneth Branagh takes the lead role in this ambitious production of William Shakespeare's tragic tale of ambition and treachery.

As a country arms itself for war, a family tears itself apart. Forced to avenge his father's death but paralyzed by the task ahead, Hamlet rages against the impossibility of his predicament, threatening both his sanity and the security of the state.

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.

The Moorish general Othello is manipulated into thinking that his new wife Desdemona has been carrying on an affair with his lieutenant Michael Cassio when in reality it is all part of the scheme of a bitter ensign named Iago.

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, sees Rory Kinnear and Anne-Marie Duff return to the National Theatre to play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.

Christopher Plummer is joined by an all-star cast including Michael Caine, Robert Shaw, Roy Kinnear and Donald Sutherland in this historic production of Hamlet filmed on location at Elsinore, Denmark, the actual location where the play is set.

A new English adaptation of the classic French tragedy Phèdre by Jean Racine (1639-1699). It retells the ancient Greek tale of the wife of the Atenian King Theseus, who conceived a forbidden love for his son (by an earlier wife) Hyppolytus. All ends badly for all.

A dark psychological crime drama starring Idris Elba as Luther, a man struggling with his own terrible demons, who might be as dangerous as the depraved murderers he hunts.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? is an English reality television talent show that documented the search for an undiscovered musical theatre performer to play the role of Maria von Trapp in the 2006 Andrew Lloyd Webber and David Ian stage production of The Sound of Music. The series was devised by executive producer Gigi Eligoloff, and was announced by the BBC in April 2006. BBC One broadcast the programme, which was hosted by Graham Norton, on Saturday evenings from 29 July through 16 September 2006. The title derives from the refrain of "Maria", a song from the first act of The Sound of Music.

Thriller series which tracks five 24-hour periods in a police investigation.

John Barton holds a master class in how to play Shakespeare, using members of the RSC doing scenes, sonnets, and commentary as prime examples.

The stories of five young women who were tragically murdered in Ipswich in 2006.

Edwardian Farm is an historical documentary TV series in twelve parts, first shown on BBC Two from November 2010 to January 2011. It depicts a group of historians trying to run a farm like it was done during the Edwardian era. It was made for the BBC by independent production company Lion Television and filmed at Morwellham Quay, an historic quay in Devon. The farming team was historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn. The series was devised and produced by David Upshal and directed by Stuart Elliott. The series is a development from two previous series Victorian Farm and Victorian Pharmacy which were among BBC Two's biggest hits of 2009 and 2010, garnering audiences of up to 3.8 million per episode. The series was followed by Wartime Farm in September 2012, featuring the same team but this time in Hampshire on Manor Farm, living a full calendar year as wartime farmers. An associated book by Goodman, Langlands, and Ginn, also titled Edwardian Farm, was published in 2010 by BBC Books. The series was also published on DVD, available in various regional formats.

Drama revealing the human story beneath the classic biblical tale, from the courtship of Mary and Joseph in Nazareth to the birth of Jesus in a Bethlehem stable.

A series of British television films featuring William Shakespeare's History Plays.

An animated adaptation of twelve of Shakespeare's best-known plays. The series was produced by S4C for the BBC, but animated by some of the foremost artists of Soyuzmultfilm, the former Soviet Union's main animation studio. Each 26-minute play is directed by a different animator, in a wide variety of styles: cel animation for Macbeth, stop-motion puppets in Twelfth Night, and paint on glass for Hamlet.

Following a raft of shootings in an English market town, the crimes are retold in a nonlinear narrative structure through the eyes of a journalist and the tragedies' victims.

A series of eight monologues set in the same pub over many years of gay history in response to the 50th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act.

David Tennant and Michael Sheen (playing themselves) were due to star in a production of 'Six Characters in Search of an Author' in the West End. The pandemic has put an end to that, but their director (Simon Evans) is determined not to let the opportunity pass them by.

Patricia Routledge gives a career-best performance as Queen Victoria in this 1964 series of plays based on the celebrated collection of dramas by playwright Laurence Housman. Self-willed, obstinate, imperious and passionate... a now-familiar description of one of history's longest-serving female monarchs – but Housman's satirical tribute marked a decisive break with the tradition of the uncritical historical portrait. A Broadway hit deemed too disrespectful for public performance in Britain until the late 1930s, Victoria Regina is a frank portrayal of an extraordinarily complex woman, tracing her development from royal teenager to inconsolable widow at the helm of a vast empire, with all her contradictions, prejudices and unconstitutional behavior.

Windrush is a 4-part series of one hour television documentaries originally broadcast on BBC2 in 1998 to mark the 50th anniversary of the arrival in Britain of the Empire Windrush, the ship which brought the first wave of post-war West Indian immigrants

National Theatre Cottesloe production filmed for Channel 4