London's National Theatre Streams Free Plays

As numerous theatrical institutions across the world have opened up their archives in response to increasing lockdown restrictions, all eyes have remained on one organisation: the National Theatre in London, which has the greatest archive of cinema-quality recordings of stage plays of any theatre on the planet, thanks to its formidable NT Live programme. It’s designed to beam productions from the NT into cinemas across the country, but there are of course no cinemas in operation at present. So the NT is switching to its YouTube channel. From April 2, under the banner of National Theatre at Home, every Thursday (7pm GMT/2pm EST) will see a new National Theatre play released – free to watch for one week – along with bonus content including cast and creative Q&As and post-stream talks.

There’s a definite emphasis on family-friendly good cheer for the line-up so far, which kicks off with a big hitter: Richard Bean’s beloved farce ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’, starring a pre-chat-show-days James Corden. Over the next few weeks you can expect a string of family-friendly titles, though naturally there will be those hoping for some of the real NT Live blockbusters, notably ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Frankenstein’ starring Benedict Cumberbatch and ‘Coriolanus’ starring Tom Hiddleston.

The initial programme is:

April 2 ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ by Richard Bean, starring James Corden. Read our review.

April 9 ‘Jane Eyre’, adapted by Sally Cookson. Read our review.

April 16 ‘Treasure Island’, adapted by Bryony Lavery. Read our review.

April 23 ‘Twelfth Night’ by William Shakespeare, starring Tamsin Greig. Read our review.

Additionally, the National Theatre will be rolling out National Theatre Collection study resources to pupils now learning at home.