National Theatre update on Jan-Apr 2016 season

The National Theatre has now announced further details of its January to April 2016 season, with casting, creatives and booking dates for many of its upcoming productions.

In the OLIVIER THEATRE

Synopsis:"An African country teeters on the edge of civil war. A society prepares to drive out its colonial present and claim an independent future. Racial tensions boil over. Tshembe, returned home from England for his father's funeral, finds himself in the eye of the storm. A family and a nation fall apart under the pressure to determine their own identity ...."

In the LYTTELTON THEATRE

Synopsis:"Chicago, 1927. In a recording studio on the city's South Side, a battle of wills is raging. Ma Rainey, Mother of the Blues, uses every trick in the book to fight her record producers for control of her music. Hardened by years of ill-treatment and bad deals, she's determined that 'Black Bottom', the song that bears her name, will be recorded her way. But Levee, the band's swaggering young trumpet player, plans to catapult the band into the jazz age. His ambition puts them all in danger.."

Synopsis: "Things are getting tough for Sam. No job, benefits stopped and stuck in a tiny flat with his girlfriend Maya and her mum. The pressure is building. It feels like there might be only one way out. But every ending is a beginning and there are plenty of people keen to capitalise on Sam's momentous decision. From corrupt local politicians to kids trying to raise the number of views of their online videos, everyone wants a piece of Sam's demise. It scarcely matters what Sam actually wants. Faced with the promise of immortality, what's his life worth?"

In the DORFMAN THEATRE

Synopsis:"Tinker practises the art of atrocity, but even he isn't immune from the need for love. Existing on the border between beauty and brutality, CLEANSED imagines a world in which language, human relationships and the body itself are pared away to bare bone."

Synopsis:"In a run-down movie theatre in central Massachusetts, three underpaid employees mop the floors and attend to one of the last 35-millimetre film projectors in the state. Their tiny battles and not-so-tiny heartbreaks play out in the empty aisles, becoming more gripping than the lacklustre, second-run movies on screen.."

In the TEMPORARY THEATRE

Synopsis: "Effie's life spirals through a mess of drink, drugs and drama every night, and a hangover worse than death the next day - till one night gives her the chance to be something more.."

Synopsis: "Phil and Alice are in love. Phil and Alice are healing wounds. Phil and Alice are desperate to communicate. Candid, uninhibited and visceral, this is an intimate, tender portrait of loss, hurt and recovery."

Synopsis:"A fearless company of teenagers investigate the workings of the adolescent brain. Created with leading cognitive neuroscientist Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and drawing upon the life experiences of the cast, BRAINSTORM is an exploration of the most frustrating, chaotic and exhilarating changes that will ever happen to us."

Booking information:

Public booking opens on 22 October for: Les Blancs, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Suicide, Cleansed, Iphigenia In Splott, The Solid Life of Sugar Water and Brainstorm.

Booking dates to be announced for The Flick.