Ahead of National Theatre at Home’s one year anniversary on 1 December, the National Theatre has today announced the next filmed productions to be added to the streaming service, which is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Joining the platform today is Simon Godwin’s critically acclaimed 2018 production of Antony & Cleopatra in the Olivier theatre, with Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo playing Shakespeare’s famous fated couple. Then the iconic and multi-award-winning production of War Horse, based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo, will be available from 1 December until 31 January 2022 on demand internationally for the first time since its premiere 14 years ago. It will be available with British Sign Language, audio description and captions.
Coming soon to the platform will be the recent Birmingham Rep co-production of East is East in the Lyttelton theatre following the much-loved film; Yaël Farber’s 2017 play Salomé; Ivo van Hove’s production of Hedda Gabler with Ruth Wilson and Rafe Spall and 50 Years on Stage – a filmed on-stage celebration of 50 years of the NT from 2013 which features Britain’s greatest actors including Dame Judi Dench, Derek Jacobi, Simon Russell Beale, Dame Helen Mirren, Benedict Cumberbatch, Adrian Lester among many more.
Over the last year, new productions have been added each month and there are now 41 productions available to stream on the platform, including newly filmed shows from the NT’s stages and classics from the archives. It has been nearly a year since the platform launched and, in that time, National Theatre at Home has been streamed in 130 countries for over 17 million minutes and gifted 7,300 times.
Available to watch online anywhere in the world at any time, all productions are available with captions and 23 have audio description.
Emma Keith, Director of Digital Media for the National Theatre, said: “We are delighted and proud to be celebrating a whole year of our on-demand international streaming platform National Theatre at Home. It has been an honour to provide audiences with some of these much-loved titles from National Theatre Live and our Archive and to see the audience responses. We’ve heard from audiences who are sharing the experience with loved ones in separate homes or countries, or those who have gathered together in person. Some audiences returning to a forgotten favourite they watched live or in the cinema, some discovering productions afresh. In a year we have managed to make over 41 productions available and look forward to working with our creative teams, co-producers and casts to keep building the library even further. There are lots of exciting titles still to come this Christmas and into the new year!”
Jemma Read, Global Head of Corporate Philanthropy at Bloomberg L.P, said: “At Bloomberg, we believe in the power of art and performance to inspire creativity and spark collaboration. We’re immensely proud that through our partnership with the NT on National Theatre at Home, communities across the globe are able to access world-leading productions and can deepen their engagement through the National Theatre guide on the Bloomberg Connects app.”
National Theatre at Home is available now at ntathome.com, with single titles available from £5.99 – £8.99, a monthly subscription for £9.99 or a yearly subscription for £99.99.
Gift subscriptions are available for anything between 1 month and 12 months.
National Theatre at Home is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
National Theatre at Home is also supported by The Linbury Trust.
Antony & Cleopatra
Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo play Shakespeare’s famous fated couple in his great tragedy of politics, passion and power. Directed by Simon Godwin (Romeo & Juliet, Hansard).
Caesar and his assassins are dead. General Mark Antony now rules alongside his fellow defenders of Rome. But at the fringes of 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.
Directed by Simon Godwin, set design by Hildegard Bechtler, costume design by Evie Gurney, lighting design by Tim Lutkin, music by Michael Bruce, movement direction by Johnathan Goddard and Shelley Maxwell, sound design by Christopher Shutt, video design by Luke Halls and fight direction by Kev McCurdy.
With Ralph Fiennes as Antony and Sophie Okonedo as Cleopatra, the cast also includes Tunji Kasim, Katy Stephens, Fisayo Akinade, Gloria Obianyo, Georgia Landers, Hiba Elchikhe, Tim McMullan, Ben Wiggins, Shazia Nicholls, Nicholas Le Prevost, Sam Woolf, Sargon Yelda, Gerald Gyimah, Waleed Hammad, Nick Sampson, Hannah Morrish, Alan Turkington, Alexander Cobb, Henry Everett, Samuel Arnold and Catherine Deevy.
Filmed by National Theatre Live, a production from the National Theatre.
Available at least until 26 November 2022.
War Horse
The winner of more than 25 international awards, including the Tony Award for Best Play on Broadway, War Horse, which has been seen by eight million people worldwide, is directed by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris. Nick Stafford’s adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s remarkable story of courage, loyalty and friendship tells the story of a young boy called Albert and his horse Joey, set against the backdrop of the First World War. This powerfully moving and imaginative drama is a show of phenomenal inventiveness, filled with stirring music and songs, featuring ground-breaking puppetry work by South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company, which brings breathing, galloping horses to life on stage. At the outbreak of World War One, Albert’s beloved horse, Joey, is sold to the Cavalry and shipped to France. Though still not old enough to enlist he embarks on a treacherous mission to find him and bring him home.
War Horse is designed by Rae Smith, with puppet direction, design and fabrication by Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler for Handspring Puppet Company, lighting by Paule Constable, and movement and horse choreography by Toby Sedgwick, with video design by Leo Warner and Mark Grimmer for 59 Productions, songmaker John Tams, music by Adrian Sutton and sound by Christopher Shutt.
Filmed by National Theatre Live, a production from the National Theatre.
Available from 1 December 2021 until 31 January 2022.
