Live West End screenings from National Theatre Live at Theatre Royal Winchester

Live West End screenings from National Theatre Live at Theatre Royal Winchester

Theatre Royal Winchester will host a number of cinema-style screenings of London theatre productions over the coming months – including The Crucible and Life of Pi via National Theatre Live.

The theatre will screen filmed performances of National Theatre’s productions of The Crucible and Othello as well as Life of Pi and Best of Enemies, which were filmed across London’s West End; and a live-stream of the production, GOOD, from the Harold Pinter Theatre.

Audiences will get to enjoy classic and modern stories featuring well-known faces from stage and screen including Erin Doherty (The Crown), Giles Terera (Hamilton), David Tennant (Doctor Who) and Zachary Quinto (Star Trek), to name a few; and produced by revered and award-winning crews.

A contemporary new staging of Arthur Miller’s parable of power, The Crucible, on Wednesday 1 February, tells the story of a witch hunt in Salem, Massachusetts after a group of young women find their words have an almighty power.

A new production of Shakespeare’s Othello, on Sunday 19 March, sees a headstrong daughter of a senator wed in secret a refugee who has risen in a white world – but their future will not be theirs to decide.

The Olivier-award winning stage adaptation of the best-selling novel, Life of Pi, on Saturday 1 April, witnesses a 16-year-old boy stranded on a lifeboat with four animal survivors including a Royal Bengal tiger, and features stunning puppetry.

Set in pre-war Germany, GOOD, on Thursday 20 April, is about a good, intelligent German professor who finds himself pulled into a movement with unthinkable consequences; starring David Tennant as he makes a much-anticipated return to the West End in this reimagining of one of Britain’s most powerful political plays.

In Best of Enemies, on Monday 5 June, in 1968 America two men debate the moral landscape of a shattered nation; and as beliefs are challenged and slurs slung, a new frontier of American politics opens and TV news is transformed forever.

The screenings are possible following the installation of a laser projector, cinema screen, live streaming equipment and surround sound system at Theatre Royal Winchester in summer 2021. Play to the Crowd – the charity responsible for the theatre – was able to complete this project thanks to a grant by the Garfield Weston Foundation, which awarded the charity money to help it continue to improve and extend its offer, accessibility and audience experience.

For some time, the theatre had wanted to operate in part, as it once did – projecting footage onto a screen as well as presenting live performances on stage. The theatre building was originally built as a hotel, it then became a cine-variety theatre followed by a cinema before becoming a live performance venue. 

Tickets for NT Live cost £16 each, with discounted rates for members and concessions.

For more information or to book tickets visit theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk or call 01962 840 440.

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