Multi-award-winning drama The Madness of George III will be broadcast live to cinemas, in National Theatre Live’s first ever broadcast from Nottingham Playhouse.
Written by one of Britain’s best-loved playwrights Alan Bennett (The History Boys, The Lady in the Van), this epic play was also adapted into a BAFTA Award-winning film following its premiere on stage in 1991.
The cast of this new production includes Olivier Award-winners Mark Gatiss (Sherlock, Wolf Hall, NT Live Coriolanus) in the title role, and Adrian Scarborough (Gavin and Stacey, Upstairs Downstairs, After the Dance).
It’s 1786 and King George III is the most powerful man in the world. But his behaviour is becoming increasingly erratic as he succumbs to fits of lunacy. With the King’s mind unravelling at a dramatic pace, ambitious politicians and the scheming Prince of Wales threaten to undermine the power of the Crown, and expose the fine line between a King and a man.

Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo play the famous fated couple. Simon Godwin (Twelfth Night, Man and Superman, The Beaux' Stratagem) directs.
Caesar and his assassins are dead. General Mark Antony now rules alongside his fellow defenders of Rome. But at the fringes of a war-torn empire the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra and Mark Antony have fallen fiercely in love.

In a tragic fight between devotion and duty, obsession becomes a catalyst for war. Politics and passion are violently intertwined in Shakespeare’s gripping tale of power.
‘Eternity was in our lips and eyes.’

Simon Russell Beale plays William Shakespeare’s Richard II, broadcast live from the stage of the Almeida Theatre in London to cinemas.
This visceral new production about the limits of power will be directed by Joe Hill-Gibbins, whose previous plays include Little Revolution at the Almeida and Absolute Hell at the National Theatre.
Richard II, King of England, is irresponsible, foolish and vain. His weak leadership sends his kingdom into disarray and his court into uproar. Seeing no other option but to seize power, the ambitious Bolingbroke challenges the throne and the king’s divine right to rule.
Simon Russell Beale returns to National Theatre Live screens following broadcasts of Timon of Athens and King Lear, and his recent role in the National Theatre’s critically acclaimed production of The Lehman Trilogy.

Do I run? This is the question which is facing Pauline Gibson. She has spent her life as a doctor, the inspiring leader of a local health campaign. When she crosses paths with her old boyfriend, Jack Gould, a stalwart loyalist in Labour Party politics, she’s faced with an agonising decision.
What’s involved in sacrificing your private life and your peace of mind for something more than a single issue? Does she dare?

David Hare (Plenty, Skylight, Stuff Happens) was recently described by the Washington Post as ‘the premiere political dramatist writing in English.’  His explosive new play portrays the history of a twenty year intimate friendship and its public repercussions.