NT Live Encore – Present Laughter
Tuesday 7th January, 7.00pm Click for tickets here
Matthew Warchus directs Andrew Scott (BBC’s Sherlock, Fleabag’s ‘Hot Priest’) in Noël Coward’s provocative comedy Present Laughter.
As he prepares to embark on an overseas tour, star actor Garry Essendine’s colourful life is in danger of spiralling out of control. Engulfed by an escalating identity crisis as his many and various relationships compete for his attention, Garry’s few remaining days at home are a chaotic whirlwind of love, sex, panic and soul-searching.
Captured live from The Old Vic in London, Present Laughter is a giddy and surprisingly modern reflection on fame, desire and loneliness.
Exhibition on Screen – Leonardo
Wednesday 8th January, 7.00pm Click for tickets here
Marking the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death
Leonardo da Vinci is acclaimed as the world’s favourite artist. Many TV shows and feature films have showcased this extraordinary genius but often not examined closely enough is the most crucial element of all: his art. Leonardo’s peerless paintings and drawings will be the focus of Leonardo: The Works, as EXHIBITION ON SCREEN presents every single attributed painting, in Ultra HD quality, never seen before on the big screen. Key works include The Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, Lady with an Ermine, Ginevra de’ Benci, Madonna Litta, Virgin of the Rocks, and more than a dozen others.
This film also looks afresh at Leonardo’s life – his inventiveness, his sculptural skills, his military foresight and his ability to navigate the treacherous politics of the day – through the prism of his art. To be released on the 500th anniversary of his death, this is the definitive film about Leonardo: the first to truly tell the whole story.
Thursday 9th January, 7.30pm
A sweeping romantic historical drama, Never Look Away follows thirty years in the life of a great artist – loosely based on Gerhard Richter, one of the 20th century’s most admired visual artists – played by Tom Schilling (Woman in Gold, Generation War). The film goes from a childhood witnessing Nazi Germany, to post-war East Berlin, where he falls in love with a young woman (Paula Beer, Frantz, The Dark Valley, Transit) whose father is an ex-Nazi murderer in hiding (Sebastian Koch, The Lives of Others, Homeland, Blackbook), to escaping to the West at the time of the Berlin Wall, and ultimately being part of the exciting new movement in contemporary art.
Runtime: 189 minutes
Club Screening – Wild Rose
Tuesday 14th January, 7.30pm
Fresh out from the jail after one year condemned by narcotics possession, Rose-Lynn Harlan is a 23-years old working-class girl from Glasgow, Scotland, who tries rectify her chaotic life: foul-mouthed, streetwise, rebel and free-spirited, Rose-Lynn meets again her little children, older Wynonna and younger Lyle, cared since her imprisonment by their grandmother Marion, who despises openly her daughter’s lifestyle. Worker in the bakery of a shopping center along 20 years, Marion struggles to understand her stranded daughter, who becomes determined to travel Nashville, Tennesse (USA) to turn in a famous country singer.
Runtime: 101 minutes
ROH Royal Ballet Live – The Sleeping Beauty
Thursday 16th January, 19:00pm Click for tickets here
The wicked fairy Carabosse is furious she wasn’t invited to Princess Aurora’s christening. She gives the baby a spindle, saying that one day the Princess will prick her finger on it and die. The Lilac Fairy makes her own christening gift a softening of Carabosse’s curse: Aurora will not die, but will fall into a deep sleep, which only a prince’s kiss will break.
On her 16th birthday, Aurora discovers the spindle and pricks her finger. She falls into an enchanted sleep, and the whole palace sleeps with her. One hundred years later, Prince Florimund discovers the palace, hidden deep within a great, dark forest. He wakes Aurora with a kiss.
Club Screening – Yesterday
Tuesday 21st January, 7.30pm
Jack Malik (Himesh Patel, BBC’s Eastenders) is a struggling singer-songwriter in a tiny English seaside town whose dreams of fame are rapidly fading, despite the fierce devotion and support of his childhood best friend, Ellie (Lily James, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again). Then, after a freak bus accident during a mysterious global blackout, Jack wakes up to discover that The Beatles have never existed… and he finds himself with a very complicated problem, indeed. Directed by Danny Boyle.
Runtime: 112 minutes
Club Screening – Pain & Glory
Thursday 23rd January, 7.30pm
Pedro Almodóvar’s self-portrait of the artist as addict, Pain and Glory tells of a series of re encounters experienced by Salvador Mallo, a film director in his physical decline. Some of them in the flesh, others remembered: his childhood in the 60s, when he emigrated with his parents to a village in Valencia in search of prosperity, the first desire, his first adult love in the Madrid of the 80s, the pain of the breakup of that love while it was still alive and intense, writing as the only therapy to forget the unforgettable, the early discovery of cinema, and the void, the infinite void that creates the incapacity to keep on making films. Pain and Glory talks about creation, about the difficulty of separating it from one’s own life and about the passions that give it meaning and hope. In recovering his past, Salvador finds the urgent need to recount it, and in that need he also finds his salvation.
Runtime: 112 minutes
Club Screening – The Goldfinch
Tuesday 28th January, 7.30pm
“The Goldfinch” is the film adaptation of Donna Tartt’s globally acclaimed bestseller of the same name, which won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and spent more than 30 weeks on The New York Times Best Sellers list. Theodore “Theo” Decker (Ansel Elgort) was 13 years old when his mother was killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The tragedy changes the course of his life, sending him on a stirring odyssey of grief and guilt, reinvention and redemption, and even love. Through it all, he holds on to one tangible piece of hope from that terrible day…a painting of a tiny bird chained to its perch. The Goldfinch.
Runtime: 149 minutes
ROH Live – La Bohème
Wednesday 29th January, 7:00pm Click for tickets here
Richard Jones perfectly captures the blend of tragedy and comedy in La bohème, and provides an acute analysis of Puccini’s young would-be artists and their lovers, the soulful Mimì and spirited Musetta. Spectacular designs by Stewart Laing evoke both the poverty of the bohemians’ attic home and the splendour of Paris’s shopping arcades on Christmas Eve.
Puccini’s score is one of his most beautiful, with highlights including Rodolfo and Mimì’s introductory arias and love duet in Act I, ebullient music for the chorus and soloists in Act II, and Mimì’s poignant death scene, over which the composer himself wept. La bohème received its world premiere at the Teatro Regio, Turin, on 1 February 1896, and its Covent Garden premiere the following year. It is currently one of the best-loved operas worldwide, and the opera most performed at the Royal Opera House.
Club Screening – Lowry
Thursday 30th January, 7.30pm
Beloved British artist L.S. Lowry (Timothy Spall) lived all his life with his over-bearing mother Elizabeth (Vanessa Redgrave). Bed-ridden and bitter, Elizabeth actively tried to dissuade her bachelor son from pursuing his artistic ambitions, whilst never failing to voice her opinion at what a disappointment he was to her.
Runtime: 91 minutes
Opera, live from the Met – The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess
Saturday 1st February, 5.30pm Click for tickets here
One of America’s favourite operas returns to the Met for the first time in nearly 30 years. James Robinson’s stylish production transports audiences to Catfish Row on the Charleston waterfront, vibrant with the music, dancing, emotion, and heartbreak of its inhabitants. “If you’re going to stage Gershwin’s opera, this is how,” raved the Guardian when the new production premiered in London in 2018. David Robertson conducts a dynamic cast, featuring the sympathetic duo of Eric Owens and Angel Blue in the title roles and an all-star ensemble that includes Golda Schultz, Latonia Moore, Denyce Graves, Frederick Ballentine, Alfred Walker, and Ryan Speedo Green.
Kinky Boots the Musical
Tuesday 4th February, 7.00pm Click for tickets here
Sunday 9th February, 7.00om Click for tickets here
Kinky Boots The Musical, filmed live at the Adelphi Theatre in the heart of London’s West End, is strutting onto the big screen! With songs from Grammy and Tony award winning pop icon Cyndi Lauper, book by legendary Broadway playwright Harvey Fierstein (La Cage Aux Folles), and direction and choreography by Jerry Mitchell (Legally Blonde, Hairspray), the musical is based on the film written by Geoff Deane and Tim Firth.
Inspired by true events, this huge-hearted hit tells the story of two people with nothing in common – or so they think. Charlie (Killian Donnelly) is a factory owner struggling to save his family business, and Lola (Matt Henry) is a fabulous entertainer with a wildly exciting idea. With a little compassion and a lot of understanding, this unexpected pair learn to embrace their differences and create a line of sturdy stilettos unlike any the world has ever seen! But in the end, their most sensational achievement is their friendship. This unmissable musical theatre event celebrates a joyous story of British grit transforming into a high-heeled hit as it takes you from the factory floor of Northampton to the glamorous catwalks of Milan!
Runtime 133 Minutes
Exhibition on Screen – Lucien Freud, A Self Portrait
Wednesday 12th February, 7.00pm Click for tickets here
For the first time in history the Royal Academy of Arts in London, in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, is bringing together Lucian Freud’s self-portraits.
The exhibition will display more than 50 paintings, prints and drawings in which this modern master of British art turned his unflinching eye firmly on himself. One of the most celebrated painters of our time, Lucian Freud is also one of very few 20th-century artists who portrayed themselves with such consistency.
Spanning nearly seven decades his self-portraits give a fascinating insight into both his psyche and his development as a painter, from his earliest portrait painted in 1939 to the final one executed 64 years later. When seen together, his portraits represent an engrossing study into the dynamic of ageing and the process of self-representation. This intensely compelling exhibition creates a unique opportunity for EXHIBITION ON SCREEN to reveal the life’s work of a master in one show.
NT Live – Cyrano de Bergerac
Thursday 20th February, 7.00pm, Click for tickets here
James McAvoy (X-Men, Atonement) returns to the stage in an inventive new adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac, broadcast live to cinemas from the West End in London.
Fierce with a pen and notorious in combat, Cyrano almost has it all – if only he could win the heart of his true love Roxane. There’s just one big problem: he has a nose as huge as his heart. Will a society engulfed by narcissism get the better of Cyrano – or can his mastery of language set Roxane’s world alight? Edmond Rostand’s masterwork is adapted by Martin Crimp, with direction by Jamie Lloyd (Betrayal). This classic play will be brought to life with linguistic ingenuity to celebrate Cyrano’s powerful and resonant resistance against overwhelming odds.
ROH Royal Ballet Live – The Cellist / Dances at a Gathering
Tuesday 25th February, 7.00pm Click for tickets here
Cathy Marston has previously been an Associate Artist of the Royal Opera House and Director of Bern Ballett, and is much in demand internationally. The inspiration for her first work for The Royal Ballet Main Stage is the momentous life and career of the cellist Jacqueline du Pré. Jerome Robbins’s elegant and elegiac classic forms the second part of the programme. This exercise in pure dance for five couples, set to music by Chopin, is a masterpiece of subtlety and invention. by Cathy Marston | Jerome Robbins
Time in Pause – Piano Miniatures
Friday 28th February, 7.30pm Click for tickets here
Time in Pause is a meditation on a collection of miniature piano pieces from different eras in musical history, showcasing the vast imagination of composers capturing moments in time woven together by silence. Played by Simon Davis. Pieces by Olivier Messiaen, Eric Satie, J S Bach, John Cage, Arvo Pärt, Claude Debussy, Franz Schubert.
Opera, live from the Met – Agrippina
Saturday 29th February, 5.30pm Click for tickets here
Handel’s tale of intrigue and impropriety in ancient Rome receives its first Met performances, with star mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato as the controlling, power-hungry Agrippina and Harry Bicket conducting. Sir David McVicar’s production ingeniously reframes the action of this black comedy about the abuse of power to “the present,” where it should loudly resonate. The all-star cast features mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey as Agrippina’s son and future emperor Nerone, soprano Brenda Rae as the seductive Poppea, countertenor Iestyn Davies as the ambitious officer Ottone, and bass Matthew Rose as the weary emperor Claudius.
This production was originally created by the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie / De Munt Brussels and adapted by the Metropolitan Opera Production a gift of Dunard Fund USA
Kent DuChaine – USA Bluesman in Concert
Friday 6th March, 8.00pm Click for tickets here
We are excited to welcome back the magnificent Kent DuChaine after his sell out debut appearance last year, Kent has listened to, hung out with, opened up for, travelled and played `with most of the great Blues men and women his whole adult life. The list is too long to name them all, but some of the major ones are: Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Big Mama Thornton, Koko Taylor, BB, Albert and Freddie King, Willie Dixon, Bukka White, Johnny Shines, Robert JR Lockwood, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Furry Lewis and Son House.
His dedication and talent for the blues earned him the honour of opening two shows for Bukka White, spending time with Mississippi Fred McDowell and befriending his hometown Bluesmen, Lazy Bill Lucas and Mojo Buford in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has even hung out with Muddy Waters who he later paid his last respects to at Muddys’ funeral in Chicago. Book now!!!!
Opera, live from the Met – Der Fliegende Holländer
Saturday 14th March, 4.30pm Click for tickets here
Award-winning Sir Bryn Terfel CBE returns to the Met for the first time since 2012 as the mysterious seafarer searching for salvation in this co-production with L’Opéra de Québec and Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam.
Inspired by the legend of the Flying Dutchman, the Captain of a ghostly ship who has been condemned to sail the seas for eternity, is offered a chance of redemption by true love.
Director François Girard, whose mesmerizing production of Parsifal recently wowed Met audiences, returns to stage Wagner’s eerie early masterwork.
ROH Live – Fidelio
Tuesday 17th March, 7.00pm Click for tickets here
Beethoven’s only opera is a masterpiece, an uplifting story of risk and triumph. In this new production, conducted by Antonio Pappano, Jonas Kaufmann plays the political prisoner Florestan, and Lise Davidsen his wife Leonore (disguised as ‘Fidelio’) who daringly sets out to rescue him. Set in strong counterpoint are the ingredients of domestic intrigue, determined love and the cruelty of an oppressive regime.
The music is transcendent throughout and includes the famous Act I Quartet, the Prisoners’ Chorus and Florestan’s impassioned Act II cry in the darkness and vision of hope. Tobias Kratzer’s new staging brings together the dark reality of the French Revolutionary ‘Terror’ and our own time to illuminate Fidelio’s inspiring message of shared humanity.
Millicent’s Favourite in Concert
Friday 20th March, 8.00pm Click for tickets here
Inspired by the sensational Isle of Wight seascape, playing original, traditional, dynamic & uplifting acoustic music with an energetic performance, delivered with a warm and friendly stage presence …
Foot tapping ‘Millicent’s Favourite’ evolved from the fusion of traditional clog, step dance music and the original compositions of Simon Gardner and Andrew Noctor. Simon, an accomplished mandolin, tenor guitar / guitarist and wife, Linda (recorders and clog percussion) met with Andrew Noctor (guitars, shruti box, bodhran), whilst performing for the Isle of Wight Cloggies. The tuneful Mr. Robin Whitehead plays superb double bass.