Front Room seats
Here is the latest list of fantastic online content, courtesy of The Guardian. Move over Disney+ & Netflix - now we can binge-watch theatre!
National Theatre at Home
The NT has risen to the occasion by unveiling a mighty lineup of some of its greatest hits, to be streamed online on Thursdays at 7pm and then available for seven days. First up on 2 April is the deliriously funny One Man, Two Guvnors, Richard Bean’s 2011 adaptation of Carlo Goldoni’s comedy, with a cast including James Corden and Jemima Rooper. In the following weeks you can see Sally Cookson’s adaptation of Jane Eyre, Bryony Lavery’s Treasure Island, and Twelfth Night starring Tamsin Greig.
The Wonderfull Yeare
“Wherein is shewed the picture of London, lying sicke of the Plague …” So runs the grimly resonant opening of Thomas Dekker’s 1603 plague pamphlet, written while the capital’s theatres closed their doors. On 1 April, the experimental company Invulnerable Nothings host a Zoom livestream reading of what they call a “theatrical curiosity ripe for rediscovery”. The reading will feature actors in isolation in the US and the UK. It kicks off at 7pm GMT.
Schaubühne
Berlin’s essential theatre, run by Thomas Ostermeier, is streaming classic productions from its archive, many of them with English subtitles. Lars Eidinger (SS-GB and Personal Shopper) stars in Hedda Gabler, Hamlet and as a rapping, standup comic version of the villainous Richard III. Other highlights include Nina Hoss in Yasmina Reza’s Bella Figura. Full Schaubühne schedule.
Boys Don’t
The Cure’s Robert Smith tried to laugh about it, cover it all up with lies, because – all together now – boys don’t cry. A powerful piece of rhyme-packed storytelling for the over-eights, Boys Don’t is delivered by four compelling performers and based on real-life experiences of the expectations placed on “little men” throughout the generations before they even get to the playground. Presented by Half Moon theatre, it’s a Papertale production in association with Apples and Snakes, staged at Brighton festival in 2018.
Fragments (Beckett by Brook)
Is there a more fitting playwright for our current moment of isolation, uncertainty and endurance than Beckett? In this production, filmed at the marvellously atmospheric Bouffes du Nord in Paris in 2015, Peter Brook directs five Beckett shorts with a cast of three (Jos Houben, Marcello Magni and Kathryn Hunter). The production comprises Rough for Theatre I, Rockaby, Neither, Come and Go and Act Without Words II. Feel the rising panic and despair in Rockaby as the solitary, wide-eyed Hunter recounts a descent through long, lonely days.
Smashed
At first sight they could be Pina Bausch’s dancers: a procession of performers wearing smart suits and enigmatic smiles, gliding across a stage filled with apples. Bausch’s company memorably balanced apples on their heads in Palermo Palermo, but as Smashed is created by those juggling supremos Gandini, the fruit is mostly in motion here. Their Bausch homage has the same childlike games, adult fantasy and bruised humour of the German choreographer’s work. Smashed is crisp, fresh and full of flavour. You may never look at an apple in the same way again …
Ghost Quartet
If you missed its run at Soho’s new Boulevard theatre, here’s a chance to savour Dave Malloy’s song cycle, filmed in New York in 2015. Alternately rousing and yearning, this is a gorgeous hymn to barflies, precious memories and the joys of being a ghost, told with a dash of Edgar Allan Poe and Thelonious Monk. It’s a glorious get-together of a show, as warming as the whiskey handed out to the audience – but you’ll have to pour your own I’m afraid.
Oscar Wilde season
All four productions in Classic Spring’s starry Oscar Wilde season in the West End can be watched on the online service Marquee TV, which is offering a 30-day free trial. Edward and Freddie Fox play father and son in An Ideal Husband, Eve Best is a memorable Mrs Arbuthnot in A Woman of No Importance, Kathy Burke directs Lady Windermere’s Fan and Sophie Thompson is horrified by theatre’s most famous handbag in The Importance of Being Earnest.
Key Change
Open Clasp is a women’s theatre company aiming to “change the world, one play at a time”. Key Change, now available to stream online, is a fantastic introduction to their consistently impressive work with women who are on the margins of society; in this case, prisoners at HM Prison Low Newton, who devised the 2015 show with the theatre group over several months in order to break down stigma and enlighten audiences. It was filmed in partnership with The Space.
The Metamorphosis
The Royal Opera House may have shut its doors but it has opened up its archive for a series of free streams on its Facebook and YouTube channels. These include the Royal Ballet performing Peter and the Wolf and, on 17 April, The Metamorphosis, a surreal and very gloopy staging of Kafka’s novella, choreographed by Arthur Pita and created for dancer Edward Watson.
I and You
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Self-isolation will offer many an opportunity to binge on box sets. But if you’re wary of committing to Game of Thrones (watching every episode non-stop would amount to three days) then try this 85-minute play starring Arya Stark herself, Maisie Williams. It’s a two-hander, also featuring Zach Wyatt, appropriately exploring isolation and also hymning the wisdom of Walt Whitman. Written by the US playwright Lauren Gunderson, the production was filmed at Hampstead theatre in 2018. It’s available for a week from 23 March.
Check Up: Our NHS at 70
Activist and comedian Mark Thomas took the temperature of our healthcare system in his urgent 2018 solo show. You can download it until 26 March if you make a donation to the Trussell Trust, which provides emergency food and support to those in need. “You know the score,” says Thomas. “It’s always those with the least who need most help especially in times of crisis.”
Snow Mouse
You have to hunt to find full theatre productions for very young audiences online so here’s a little treat: to mark World Day of Theatre for Children on 20 March the lovely Egg in Bath has released their wintry 40-minute tale for the under-fours.
The School for Wives
Travel restrictions needn’t prevent you from enjoying international theatre online. Paris’s esteemed Odéon has released its 2018 production of Molière’s satirical 1662 comedy of manners and cuckoldry. Claude Duparfait stars as the foolish Arnolphe and Stéphane Braunschweig directs. English subtitles available, évidemment.
The Show Must Go Online
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The actor Robert Myles has set up a reading group for professional and amateur actors to perform Shakespeare’s complete plays in the order they’re believed to have been written. The first livestreamed reading, on YouTube, was The Two Gentleman of Verona.
Showstopper! The Improvised Musical
After more than 1,000 productions, the Showstoppers improv crew are some of the quickest wits in the biz. So it’s no surprise that when they were faced with a West End closure they live-streamed a performance. Watch their custom-made, never-to-be-repeated impro musical on Facebook.
Viral Monologues
Twenty actors performed new monologues written just for them in this new initiative, shared online on 17 March. There’s some top talent involved, including comedian David Cross, actors Rachel Dratch and Andre Royo, and writers David Lindsay-Abaire, Stephen Adly Guirgis and Monique Moses.
Peeping Tom trilogy
The brilliant Belgian dance-theatre company turned 20 this year and are best known in the UK for performing at London international mime festival and their trilogy comprising Mother, Father and Child. Their brand of domestic terror, hope and ennui will strike a chord at this troubling time: watch their first trilogy (Le Jardin, Le Salon and Le Sous Sol) online.
Since U Been Gone
Teddy Lamb was due to present a Trans Take Over at London’s Bunker theatre this month as part of its now suspended Power Share season. So they have uploaded a version of their musical fringe hit about losing loved ones and finding your own voice.
Bubble
Is this the short-term future of theatremaking? Bubble, a play set entirely on Facebook, uses a cast of European actors who have never met in person, rehearsed over Skype and filmed on their cameras. Theatre Uncuts production, written by Beats playwright Kieran Hurley, is online until 23 April.
5 Soldiers
Rosie Kay’s extraordinary 5 Soldiers: The Body is the Frontline was staged in army drill halls around the UK but since its live stream is still available online, you can watch it from the comfort of your own sofa. Performing in close quarters to a score that mixes punk and opera, Kay’s phenomenal company bring home the horror of combat and disarm audiences.
The Wind in the Willows
Julian Fellowes, George Stiles and Anthony Drewe teamed up to deliver a merry new version of Kenneth Grahame’s classic, staged at the London Palladium in 2017 with Rufus Hound wearing 50 shades of green as Mr Toad. It’s available to stream online for free, with the option to donate to help provide financial and emotional support to theatre workers.
Girls Like That
London’s Unicorn theatre has a world-class reputation for theatre for young audiences and its production of Evan Placey’s Girls Like That gripped the roomful of teenagers I watched it with in 2014. It’s online in full and offers a raw account of adolescent anxiety, slut-shaming and self-belief. In-your-face theatre that stays in your mind.
Le Patin Libre
Think dance on ice and you’d imagine sequins and staggering TV celebrities but the Canadian troupe Le Patin Libre has taken the art form into a new dimension. In their double bill Vertical Influences, the skaters turned the rink into a mesmerising stage slowly decorated by the patterns cut by their blades.
Woke
LIVR is a subscription service that enables you to catch up on theatre in 360-degree virtual reality. Pop your smartphone into the headset they send you and experience a range of shows including Apphia Campbell’s Fringe First award-winning show Woke, which interweaves the stories of Black Panther Assata Shakur and the 2014 Ferguson riots.
John Leguizamo’s Latin History for Morons
Self-isolation may mean that many of us will use living rooms to both teach children and watch theatre. An opportunity to combine the two can be found courtesy of the super-charismatic John Leguizamo – an inspirational tutor if ever there was – whose one-man Broadway show Latin History for Morons is on Netflix.
Cyprus Avenue
On Friday 27 March, to mark World Theatre Day, the Royal Court will release an online version of David Ireland’s blistering play Cyprus Avenue, starring Stephen Rea as a Belfast loyalist who is convinced his baby granddaughter is Gerry Adams. The film mixes the drama shot at the Royal Court with location scenes of Belfast.
Timpson: The Musical
Two households, both alike in dignity … well, sort of. Our narrator, a talking portrait, lays our scene in Victorian London and this musical comedy imagines the founding of the popular shoe repair chain as a union between two companies, the Montashoes and the Keypulets. Watch Gigglemug Theatre’s show on YouTube.
My Left Nut
This is cheating as it’s a TV series but BBC Three’s superb comedy drama is based on one of the most uproarious and affecting fringe theatre shows of recent years. It’s based on Michael Patrick’s own teenage experience of a medical condition that left his testicle “so big you could play it like a bongo”. Wince.
Rosas Danst Rosas
Love dance? Need to exercise at home? Then join the queen of Belgian avant-garde performance Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker as she talks you through how to perform her 1983 classic Rosas Danst Rosas. All you need is a chair, a bit of legroom and enough space to swing your hair.