National Theatre Season to November 2010

The National Theatre has announced new productions and platforms for its season to November 2010.

Public booking opens 20 July 2010 for new shows.

New shows in The Olivier Theatre...

New shows in The Lyttelton Theatre...

New shows in The Cottesloe Theatre...

Productions extending booking period ....

Wecome to Thebes extends to 12 Sep
Earthquakes In London extends to 22 Sep
Danton's Death extends to 14 Oct
The Habit of Art extends to 21 Sep

New production coming Up in 2011
The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov, directed by Howard Davies, with Zoë Wanamaker as Madame Ranevskaya.

New Platforms....

Unless stated: 6pm / Length 45 mins / £3.50

In Conversation with... Lia Williams
31 August / 3pm (1hr), £5 Cottesloe
A series of informal afternoon Platforms with members of the company talking about their work and answering your questions.
Chaired by Al Senter.

In Conversation with... David Harewood
3 Sep / 3pm (1hr), £5 Cottesloe
A series of informal afternoon Platforms with members of the company talking about their work and answering your questions.
Chaired by Al Senter.

Moira Buffini and Richard Eyre on Welcome to Thebes
3 Sept, Olivier
The playwright joins her director to talk about her new play.

In Conversation with... Bill Paterson
10 Sep / 3pm (1hr), £5 Cottesloe
A series of informal afternoon Platforms with members of the company talking about their work and answering your questions.
Chaired by Al Senter.

40 Years of The Young Vic
10 Sept, Cottesloe
In September 1970, Frank Dunlop founded The Young Vic as an off-shoot of the National Theatre at The Old Vic. Conceived as a new kind of informal and affordable theatre, the inaugural production was Molière's Scapino. To celebrate the 40th anniversary, Dunlop is joined by original company members Anna Carteret and Jim Dale, the theatre critic Michael Billington, and the current Artistic Director, David Lan.

The Roald Dahl Funny Prize with Michael Rosen and Philip Ardagh
11 Sept, 10.30am (1hr), Olivier
This annual award for children's books that make us laugh was the brainchild of former Children's Laureate and poet Michael Rosen. He is joined by Philip Ardagh, winner for Grubtown Tales: Stinking Rich and Just Plain Stinky in 2009, plus special guests, for a morning of side-splitting stories and a few great giggles!

J T Rogers on Blood and Gifts
15 Sept, Cottesloe
The playwright talks about his new play, set in a country facing an emerging war - Afghanistan in 1981.

John Simpson
23 Sept, Lyttelton
John Simpson, the BBC's World Affairs Editor, has been covering the biggest news stories of the day for almost 40 years, including the invasion of Afghanistan and the conflict in Kosovo. In Unreliable Sources, he focuses on the way the British press has reported key moments in our history and charts the development of the reporter's art over the course of the last 100 years.

Neil Bartlett, Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler on Or You Could Kiss Me
18 Oct, Post-show, Cottesloe The founders of the South African puppet company Handspring, creators of the celebrated War Horse puppets, discuss this new play with their director and collaborator, Neil Bartlett.

Craig Brown: The Lost Diaries with Eleanor Bron and Edward Fox
9 Oct, Cottesloe
Private Eye's Craig Brown and guests read from The Lost Diaries, prying into the intimate daily comings and goings of such celebrated diarists as Virginia Woolf, Heather Mills McCartney, Harold Pinter, Kenneth Tynan and Nigella Lawson.

Nicholas Hytner on Hamlet
22 Oct, 5.30pm, Olivier
The National's current Director, like his predecessors Olivier in 1963, Hall in 1976 and Eyre in 1989, has now directed this iconic play; he talks about the production.

Josie Rourke on Men Should Weep
28 Oct, Lyttelton
The Artistic Director of the Bush discusses her NT production of Ena Lamont Stewart's play, set in Glasgow in the 1930s depression.

Steven Berkoff
29 Oct, Cottesloe
In Diary of a Juvenile Delinquent, the actor, director, writer and playwright paints a startling portrait of his East End childhood and the beginnings of a career that would range from Decadence and The Trial on stage to the films A Clockwork Orange and Beverly Hills Cop.

The Art of Revolution
18 Sept, 10.30am (1hr 30mins), £10, Olivier
The French Revolution of 1789 has inspired artists, writers and composers to create provocative and stirring works for successive generations; from Danton's Death (1835) and The Tale of Two Cities (1859) to The Scarlet Pimpernel (1903), alongside the inspiring paintings of Jacques-Louis David and the flippancy of (Carry On) Don't Lose Your Head. This extended Platform is an opportunity to discover how this rich political episode has been manipulated and adapted into a variety of European art forms that say as much about their own times as they do about the upheavals in 18th-century France.

NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE

A second season of National Theatre Live, the National Theatre's initiative to broadcast live performances to cinemas worldwide, will launch in autumn 2010. The first season, which began in June 2009, was seen by 150,000 people on 320 screens in 22 countries. For the first time, NT Live will collaborate with another company outside London by broadcasting Complicite's multi award-winning production A Disappearing Number live from the Theatre Royal, Plymouth on 14 October. Back at the National, Shakespeare's HAMLET, directed by Nicholas Hytner, will be broadcast on 9 December; the musical FELA! on 13 January 2011; Danny Boyle's production of FRANKENSTEIN on 17 March; and, later in 2011, a new production of THE CHERRY ORCHARD, directed by Howard Davies, with Zoë Wanamaker as Madame Ranevskaya.