Go See: Captioned theatre at London’s National Theatre, from July – December 2016

The National Theatre in London, who support this site, have a range of captioned plays from now until December, which are listed below.

For more information contact Emma Hardy, on 020 7452 3231 or ehardy@nationaltheatre.org.uk

For more information about facilities and services call 020 7452 3000, visit www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/access or email access@nationaltheatre.org.uk

Connections celebrates 21 years of the world’s largest youth arts festival

Dorfman Theatre

The National Theatre’s Connections festival celebrates the talent and passion of young theatre-makers. This year marks the 21st anniversary of Connections, with over 450 youth theatre companies and 10,000 young people from every corner of the UK, working with 45 partner theatres, performing twelve outstanding plays drawn from the 150 commissioned by the NT since the festival began.

The result is an unforgettable feast of theatre made by and for young people.

Captioned performances of Connections plays will be taking place at the National Theatre 1-2 July.

CAPTIONED PERFORMANCES:

1 July

7pm Eclipse by Simon Armitage performed by Oldham Theatre Workshop (Oldham).

2 July

7pm Citizenship by Mark Ravenhill, performed by Hove Park School.

Suitable for audiences of 16+.

8.30pm I’m Spilling My Heart Out Here by Stacey Gregg, performed by The Young Pretenders Theatre Company. Suitable for audiences of 16+.

More information can be found at connections.nationaltheatre.org.uk

The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, in collaboration with Elisabeth Hauptmann, in a new adaptation by Simon Stephens

Olivier Theatre

London scrubs up for the coronation. The thieves are on the make, the whores on the pull, the police cutting deals to keep it all out of sight. Mr and Mrs Peachum are looking forward to a bumper day in the beggary business but their daughter didn’t come home last night. 

Mack the Knife is back in town. Will contain filthy language and immoral behaviour.

A landmark 20th century musical theatre, The Threepenny Opera comes to the NT for the first time in a production directed by Rufus Norris. Rory Kinnear plays Macheath.

CAPTIONED PERFORMANCES

Saturday 2 July, 2pm

Wednesday 10 August, 7.30pm

The Deep Blue Sea by Terence Rattigan

Lyttelton Theatre

A flat in Ladbroke Grove, West London. 1952. When Hester Collyer is found by her neighbours in the aftermath of a failed suicide attempt, the story of her tempestuous affair with a former RAF pilot and the breakdown of her marriage to a High Court Judge begins to emerge. With it comes a portrait of need, loneliness and long-repressed passion.  Behind the fragile veneer of post-war civility burns a brutal sense of loss and longing.

Helen McCrory and director Carrie Cracknell reunite following the acclaimed 2014 Medea.

CAPTIONED PERFORMANCES

Saturday 9 July, 2.15pm

Friday 12 August, 7.30pm

Sunset at the Villa Thalia by Alexi Kaye Campbell

Dorfman Theatre

April 1967: Greece is in political turmoil. Charlotte and Theo have retreated to a small island in search of peace and inspiration. But when they meet a charismatic American couple at the port they are seduced into making choices with devastating consequences.

This funny and passionate new play by Alexi Kaye Campbell and directed by Simon Godwin spans a decade as it explores the impact of foreign influence, planned and unintentional, on a nation and its people.

CAPTIONED PERFORMANCES

Monday 18 July, 7.30pm

Thursday 28 July, 7.30pm

The Plough and the Stars by Sean O’Casey

Lyttelton Theatre

From November 1915 to Easter 1916, as the rebellion builds to a climax half a mile away, the disparate residents of a Dublin tenement go about their lives, peripheral to Ireland’s history.

Sean O’Casey places a fixed lens to watch as a dozen vivid characters come and go – selfless, hilarious and desperate by turns – while the heroic myth of Ireland is fought over elsewhere. Howard Davies, who memorably brought Sean O’Casey’s The Silver Tassie to the NT stage in 2014, co-directs with Jeremy Herrin.

CAPTIONED PERFORMANCES

Friday 19 August, 7.30pm

Tuesday 6 September, 7.30pm

Young Chekhov the Chichester Festival Theatre productions by Anton Chekhov, in a new version by David Hare

Olivier Theatre

The Young Chekhov trilogy opened to overwhelming acclaim at Chichester Festival Theatre last year. The company, directed by Jonathan Kent, now come to the National, offering a unique chance to explore the birth of a revolutionary dramatic voice. The trilogy is comprised of Platonov, Ivanov andThe Seagull. Performed by one ensemble of actors, each play can be seen as a single performance or enjoyed together, either over different days or as a thrilling all-day theatrical experience.

Platonov

Schoolteacher Mikhail Platonov has a problem – he’s irresistible to women. Set in the blazing heat of a rural summer, this freewheeling comedy is a cry of youthful defiance against the compromises of middle age.

Ivanov

Nikolai Ivanov is only 35, a radical and a romantic, but already he’s feeling that he’s thrown his life away. He hopes one last desperate romance may save him from becoming a small-town Hamlet. This electric play is powered both by hilarious satire and passionate self-disgust.

The Seagull

On a summer’s day in a makeshift theatre by a lake,Konstantin’s cutting-edge new play is performed, changing the lives of everyone involved forever.Chekhov’s play is both comic and tragic, and marks the birth of the modern stage.

CAPTIONED PERFORMANCES

Saturday 3 September- all day:

11.45am Platonov, 4.00pm Ivanov and 8.00pm The Seagull

Wednesday 5 October, 2pm Platonov, 7.30pm Ivanov

Thursday 15 September, 7.30pm The Seagull

Monday 26 September, 7.30pm The Seagull 

Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour a National Theatre of Scotland and Live Theatre co-production, adapted by Lee Hall, from the novel The Sopranos by Alan Warner

Dorfman Theatre

This musical, directed by Vicky Featherstone, tells the story of six girls on the cusp of change. Funny, sad, rude and beautifully sung, Our Ladies… is a tribute to being young, lost and out of control, featuring a soundtrack of classical music and 70s pop rock, to create a wild and tender ‘play meets gig’ about singing, sex and Sambuca. Suitable for those aged 16 and over.

The production had its premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2015, and enjoyed a successful sell-out run at the Traverse Theatre, earning critical and audience acclaim, and picking up four awards before embarking on a national tour. 

CAPTIONED PERFORMANCES

Monday 12 September, 8pm

Wednesday 21 September, 8pm

The Red Barn a new play by David Hare, based on the novel, La Main, by Georges Simenon

Lyttelton Theatre

Connecticut in 1969. On their way back from a party, two couples struggle home through the snow. Not everyone arrives safely…

The great detective writer Georges Simenon escaped France at the end of World War Two, and arrived in the USA to start again. With his American wife, he settled at Shadow Rock Farm in Lakeville. Years later, he wrote La Main, a psychological thriller set in a New England farmhouse.

David Hare has taken this novel and forged from it a startling new play that unfolds in The production is directed by Robert Icke (Oresteia), produced in association with Scott Rudin.

CAPTIONED PERFORMANCE

Tuesday 15 November, 7.30pm

A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer a co-production with Complicite Associates, in association with HOME Manchester.

Dorfman Theatre

A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer is an all-singing, all-dancing examination of life with a cancer diagnosis.

This brand new musical confronts the highs and lows of the scariest word we know. Bryony Kimmings creates fearless theatre to provoke social change. Her collaboration with Complicite looks behind the poster campaigns and pink ribbons at the reality of cancer: waiting rooms and chemo suites, changed bodies, family pressures and financial worries.

Expect big anthems, shiny costumes, blood, tears and real cancer patients in this rip-roaring, heart-breaking celebration of ordinary life and death. The show contains adult themes and strong language.

CAPTIONED PERFORMANCES:

Monday 21 November, 7.30pm

Monday 28 November, 7.30pm

Amadeus by Peter Shaffer

Olivier Theatre

Vienna: the music capital of the world.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a rowdy young prodigy, arrives in Vienna determined to make a splash. Awestruck by his genius, court composer Antonio Salieri has the power to promote his talent or destroy it. Seized by obsessive jealousy he begins a war with Mozart, with music and, ultimately, with God.

Peter Shaffer’s iconic play premiered at the National Theatre in 1979, winning multiple Olivier and Tony awards before being adapted into an Academy award-winning film. In this new production, directed by Michael Longhurst, Lucian Msamati (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) plays Salieri. Live orchestral accompaniment by Southbank Sinfonia.

CAPTIONED PERFORMANCE:

Tuesday 13th December, 7.30pm

Peter Pan a co-production with Bristol Old Vic, devised by the Companies and based on the works of JM Barrie

Olivier Theatre

All children, except one, grow up…

This winter, J M Barrie’s much-loved tale takes flight. When Peter Pan, the leader of the Lost Boys, loses his shadow during a visit to London, headstrong Wendy helps him re-attach it. In return she is invited to Neverland – where Tinker Bell the fairy, Tiger Lily and the vengeful Captain Hook await.

Following the acclaimed Jane Eyre, Sally Cookson brings her wondrously inventive Peter Pan to the NT after a sell-out run at Bristol Old Vic. Exploring the possibilities and pain of growing up, it’s a riot of magic, mischief, music and make-believe.

Suitable for 7yrs+

CAPTIONED PERFORMANCE

Wednesday 28 December, 7pm 

The date of a Relaxed Performance of Peter Pan will be announced later this year.

War Horse

On Tour

Following 8 record-breaking years in London’s West End, and having played to over 7 million people in 11 countries around the world, the NT’s acclaimed production War Horse, based on the beloved novel by Michael Morpurgo, will embark on a UK tour from September 2017. Venues will include Canterbury Marlowe Theatre, Liverpool Empire Theatre and Brighton Centre.

More information on assisted performances taking place across the tour can be found at www.warhorseonstage.com

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Simon Stephens, based on the best-selling novel by Mark Haddon

The NT’s award-winning production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in London’s West End and on Tour. Winner of 7 Olivier Awards and 5 Tony Awards, including ‘Best New Play’, the production brings Mark Haddon’s best-selling novel to life on stage, adapted by Simon Stephensand directed by Marianne Elliott.

In the West End’s Gielgud Theatre:

CAPTIONED PERFORMANCE

Thursday 20 October, 7.30pm

On Tour:

Please see www.curiousonstage.com for details.

Jane Eyre adapted by Sally Cookson for Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece

The highly acclaimed co-production between the NT and Bristol Old Vic opens at The Lowry in Salford on 8 April and will continue its journey around the country to Aylesbury, Plymouth, Southampton, Edinburgh, Woking, Glasgow, Canterbury, Cardiff, Milton Keynes, Leeds, Aberdeen and Birmingham, with further cities and venues to be announced.

More information on assisted performances taking place across the tour can be found at www.janeeyreonstage.co.uk

For more information contact Emma Hardy, on 020 7452 3231 or ehardy@nationaltheatre.org.uk

For more information about facilities and services call 020 7452 3000, visit www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/access or email access@nationaltheatre.org.uk