National Theatre announce further shows to April 2010

The National Theatre has announced 4 new productions & several platforms for their season to April 2010.

Public booking opens 2 Dec 2009 for new shows and several extensions.

Productions Extending...

THE PITMEN PAINTERS now closing 7 Feb 2010
NATION now closing 28 March 2010
HABIT OF ART extends to 6 April 2010
THE POWER OF YES now closing 18 April 2010

New Platforms...

6pm unless stated/ Length 45 mins unless stated
£3.50 unless stated

Terry Pratchett
19 Jan, Olivier
One of our most imaginative writers talks about his work.

Felix Barrett and Tom Morris on Every Good Boy Deserves Favour
25 Jan, Olivier, 5.30pm
As Tom Stoppard's play for actors and orchestra returns to the Olivier, the directors discuss the production.

Luise Rainer
1 Feb, 7pm (1hr 15mins)
£5 Olivier
Actress Luise Rainer celebrates her 100th birthday in January. In a specially extended Platform she reflects on an extraordinary career: discovered by Max Reinhardt and serenaded by Charlie Chaplin, she was the first person to win back-to-back Best Actress Academy Awards in the 1930s for The Great Zeigfeld and The Good Earth, married playwright Clifford Odets, and campaigned for Brecht to leave Nazi Germany. She also discusses the political and social changes she has witnessed over the course of a century, with Christopher Frayling.

David Dimbleby
3 Feb, Lyttelton
David Dimbleby's The Seven Ages of Britain uncovers the story of how British art reflects our history and heralds the major events of each era.

Anna Mackmin and Tamsin Oglesby on Really Old, Like Forty-Five
5 Feb, Cottesloe
Tamsin Oglesby talks with her director Anna Mackmin about this new play.

Stephen Sondheim
17 Feb, 5.30pm, Olivier
Stephen Sondheim's work includes West Side Story, Follies, and Sweeney Todd. Marking his 80th birthday, he talks about a life spent meticulously 'putting it together'.

Tony Benn
19 Feb, Olivier
Letters to my Grandchildren is Tony Benn's impassioned correspondence to the next generation to help them avoid the mistakes their parents and grandparents made and to fan "the flame of anger against injustice and the flame of hope."

A Study of Art
Discover more about the poet and the composer at the centre of Alan Bennett's The Habit of Art. These extended Platforms combine performance, analysis and discussion to offer a deeper understanding of their life, work and artistic legacy.
A Study of Art 1: Benjamin Britten
Sat 20 Feb, 10.30am (2hrs), Lyttelton, £10
With the soprano Elisabeth Meister. Chaired by Genista McIntosh.

Rattigan Revisited
24 Feb, Cottesloe
Terence Rattigan was one of our most important playwrights, whose work fell hugely out of fashion in the 1950s. Biographer Geoffrey Wansell discusses this abrupt dismissal, his recent reappraisal and a life of concealment.

A Study of Art 2: WH Auden
Sat 27 Feb, 10.30am (2hrs), Lyttelton, £10
With former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, and Paul Kent, academic and colleague of Auden's from Oxford. Chaired by James Naughtie

Alison Chitty
2 Mar, Cottesloe
To coincide with the NT exhibition , one of our leading theatre designers talks about her illustrious career.

John Humphrys
29 Mar, Lyttelton
John Humphreys, presenter of Today and Mastermind, has just published his seventh book, and has decided that's quite enough to be going on with. He reflects on the journalist as author and political interrogator, and why he decided to write a funny book after dealing with such weighty subjects as social change, industrial food production, the English language, God and death.

David Hare
14 April, Lyttelton
David Hare's first full-length play, Slag, opened at Hampstead Theatre on 6 April 1970. To celebrate the fortieth anniversary of his debut, and the sixteen plays he has had performed at the National Theatre, he talks about his long life as a dramatist.

NT Live

NT Live is the National's new initiative to broadcast live performances of plays onto cinema screens worldwide. Following the hugely successful screenings of PHEDRE and ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, the next shows in the pilot season will be NATION, based on a novel by Terry Pratchett, adapted by Mark Ravenhill, at a matinee performance on Saturday 30 January; and Alan Bennett's new play THE HABIT OF ART, on 22 April 2010.