
A self-obsessed actor in the midst of a mid-life crisis juggles a fawning ingenue, a crazed playwright, his ex-wife, and the personal lives of his friends. Originally broadcast as an episode of the PBS series "Great Performances" (season 45, episode 4).


6.6A sweeping drama set in the chaotic aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq, where the life of top UN diplomat Brazilian Sérgio Vieira de Mello hangs in the balance during the most treacherous mission of his career.
7.4Michael is a 24-year-old who has cerebral palsy and long-term resident of the Carrigmore Residential Home for the Disabled, run by the formidable Eileen. His life is transformed when the maverick Rory O'Shea moves in.
6.5An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
6.9A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
7.0Drama telling the story of Blue, a young man of Jamaican descent living in Brixton in 1980, as he hangs out with his friends, fronts a dub sound system, loses his job, struggles with family problems and has his friendships tested by racism.
5.9After her stay-at-home husband leaves her, a workaholic lawyer finds that she is not completely up to the tasks of caring for her young son, ailing father and household all by herself.
5.8Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.
7.1In New York City, a young girl is caught in the middle of her parents' bitter custody battle.
6.994-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
6.6A pair of twin brothers from East L.A. choose to live their lives differently and end up on opposite sides of the law.
7.6Andrew Crocker-Harris has been forced from his position as the classics master at an English public school due to poor health. As he winds up his final term, he discovers not only that his wife, Millie, has been unfaithful to him with one of his fellow schoolmasters, but that the school's students and faculty have long disdained him. However, an unexpected act of kindness causes Crocker-Harris to re-evaluate his life's work.
6.2While serving life in prison, a young man looks back at the people, the circumstances and the system that set him on the path toward his crime.
6.6An uninterrupted rehearsal of Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya' plays out by a company of actors. The setting: their run-down theater with an unusable stage and crumbling ceiling. The play is shown act by act with the briefest of breaks to move props or for refreshments. The lack of costumes, real props and scenery is soon forgotten.
6.6Dr. Alan Stone breaks new ground for treatment of the mentally ill through an experiment on three paranoid schizophrenic patients who believe they are Jesus Christ.
6.1A street smart runner develops an intense rivalry with an equally ambitious wealthy young athlete.
6.2After the lewd and frenetic Dance of the Seven Veils, and with the solemn pledge from the very lips of Herod himself that she could have whatever her heart desires up to half his kingdom, wanton and proud young Salomé comes before her king with an unreasonable demand. Beguiled by John the Baptist, and then scorned for the sake of his god, lascivious Salomé—encouraged by her mother, the vindictive, Herodias—commands that John be executed and his head delivered on a silver platter.
6.1A teenager pretends to be dying from cancer as a way to cope with the realities of his daily existence and his father's terminal illness.
6.6Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.
6.2A pro ball player with a substance abuse problem is forced into rehab in his hometown, finding new hope when he gets honest about his checkered past, and takes on coaching duties for a misfit Little League team
6.2Two law school friends find themselves at odds when one becomes a Justice Department lawyer and the other goes into politics.
7.8A 2010 broadcast of Hamlet returns to cinemas as part of the NT's 50th anniversary celebrations. Following his celebrated performances at the National Theatre in Burnt by the Sun, The Revenger's Tragedy, Philistines and The Man of Mode, Rory Kinnear plays Hamlet in a dynamic new production of Shakespeare’s complex and profound play about the human condition, directed by Nicholas Hytner. He is joined by Clare Higgins (Gertrude), Patrick Malahide (Claudius), David Calder (Polonius), James Laurenson (Ghost/Player King) and Ruth Negga (Ophelia).
8.0Two friends meet at a café. The silent unmarried Mr Y and the outspoken married Mr X. When Mr X realises that Mr Y was his rival for his wife's love they enter a battle of the minds where the stronger will win.
8.2When an old adversary threatens Rome, the city calls once more on her hero and defender: Coriolanus. But he has enemies at home too. Famine threatens the city, the citizens’ hunger swells to an appetite for change, and on returning from the field Coriolanus must confront the march of realpolitik and the voice of an angry people.
6.9In 17th-century Tuscany, a church play is performed for the benefit of young aristocrat Cosimo. In the play, a grotesque old woman gives birth to a beautiful baby boy. The child's older sister is quick to exploit the situation, selling blessings from the baby, and even claiming she's the true mother by virgin birth. However, when she attempts to seduce the bishop's son, the Church exacts a terrible revenge.
8.0National Theatre Live’s 2010 broadcast of Alan Bennett’s acclaimed play The Habit of Art, with Richard Griffiths, Alex Jennings, and Frances de la Tour, returns to cinemas as part of the National Theatre's 50th anniversary celebrations. Benjamin Britten, sailing uncomfortably close to the wind with his new opera, Death in Venice, seeks advice from his former collaborator and friend, W H Auden. During this imagined meeting, their first for 25 years, they are observed and interrupted by, amongst others, their future biographer and a young man from the local bus station. Alan Bennett’s play is as much about the theatre as it is about poetry or music. It looks at the unsettling desires of two difficult men, and at the ethics of biography. It reflects on growing old, on creativity and inspiration, and on persisting when all passion’s spent: ultimately, on the habit of art. One of the first five episodes also released on terrestrial TV on a 2009 BBC TV series titled "National Theatre Live".
0.0In The Turning Point, written by Michael Dobbs, Benedict Cumberbatch takes the role of Guy Burgess while Matthew Marsh plays the part of Winston Churchill. The play was part of the Sky Arts Theatre Live! Series, which won the Broadcasting Press Guild Best Multichannel Programme Award.
5.0A presentation of Tennessee Williams' three one-act plays: "Moony's Kid Don't Cry," "The Last of My Solid Gold Watches," and "This Property Is Condemned."
7.5Traveling rainmaker Starbuck arrives at the drought-ridden Curry place, promising rain for the farm and perhaps a romance for 'spinster sister' Lizzie.
0.0From 2000 to 2007, Teat(r)o Oficina Uzyna Uzona worked on the staging of Euclides da Cunha's epic book, Os Sertões, which describes the 19th Century War of Canudos in the Brazilian "sertão," lead by Antônio Conselheiro. The final result was a pentalogy of plays. This forth play deals with the cause of the war, when a judge from Juazeiro stopped a shipment of wood that was paid for from being delivered for the construction of the New Church of Canudos. Three expeditions were sent by the National Army and defeated, the last one commanded by the famous Colonel Moreira César. The Army faced the humiliation of soldiers deserting and running away, and the impaling of Colonel Tamarindo. He ended up being the main character in a macabre installation on the road to Canudos, created by the Jagunços (thugs from the sertão) and the Mandrakes to intimidate new expeditions.
7.2The fantastical tale of a little girl who won't - or can't - follow the rules. Confounded by her clashes with the rule-obsessed world around her, Phoebe seeks enlightenment from her unconventional drama teacher, even as her brilliant but anguished mother looks to Phoebe herself for inspiration.
7.4Medea is a wife and a mother. For the sake of her husband, Jason, she’s left her home and borne two sons in exile. But when he abandons his family for a new life, Medea faces banishment and separation from her children. Cornered, she begs for one day’s grace. It’s time enough. She exacts an appalling revenge and destroys everything she holds dear.
Seeking quite in the park, a young songwriter runs into three familiar strangers with some bad news.
6.9When Madea gets sick, her family comes to her aid. What they don't realize is that they're the ones who need her help. As always, Madea's cockeyed outlook on life saves the day and guarantees side-splitting laughs along the way.
5.8A story of survival about a woman's first night in a Soviet prison camp. After committing a crime to protect her son, Anastasia is sentenced to 12 years in a Soviet prison camp. Her arrival upsets the balance between the inmates. In a night of backstabbing and shifting alliances, she must find a way to escape and discover the hidden truth of her survival.
7.8The solo actor in Shimmer tells the story by becoming each character in turn. The play takes place in 1956, in a harsh Midwestern juvenile detention center, where two boys befriend each other.
5.6Academy Award® nominee Ralph Fiennes (The English Patient, Schindler’s List, Oedipus at the National Theatre) plays Jack Tanner in this exhilarating reinvention of Shaw’s witty, provocative classic. Jack Tanner, celebrated radical thinker and rich bachelor, seems an unlikely choice as guardian to the alluring heiress, Ann. But she takes it in her assured stride and, despite the love of a poet, she decides to marry and tame this dazzling revolutionary. Tanner, appalled by the whiff of domesticity, is tipped off by his chauffeur and flees to Spain, where he is captured by bandits and meets The Devil. An extraordinary dream-debate, heaven versus hell, ensues. Following in hot pursuit, Ann is there when Tanner awakes, as fierce in her certainty as he is in his. A romantic comedy, an epic fairytale, a fiery philosophical debate, Man and Superman asks fundamental questions about how we live.
6.4A troubled marriage is tested by the couple's involvement in a theatrical production of Racine’s Andromaque.
5.0A criminologist investigates the murder of a Broadway producer on an ocean liner.
