National Theatre Live: Follies

Sawan Ko Aane Do

Chandramukhi, the city educated daughter of the village zamindar returns to Ramnagar, a typical village. There she meets her childhood friend Birju aka Brij Mohan. He has a lovely voice and she encourages him to pursue singing. Eventually Brij and Chandramukhi fall in love, but Chandramukhi's father cuts it abruptly and sends her to Lucknow. A short while later Brij arrives at Lucknow. Gitanjali, Chandramukhi's friend, is thrilled by his voice and helps him get a job at Aakashvani through her father. Brij returns to Ramnagar to ask Chandramukhis hand in marriage but is once again rebuked. He returns and goes on to become a great singer in Mumbai with Gitanjali by his side. All through he yearns for Chandramukhi as she yearns for him. How he manages to marry her forms the rest of the story.

Smoky Mountain Melody

Country-western favorite Roy Acuff and his Smoky Mountain Boys star in the Columbia musical western Smoky Mountain Melody. Not much happens plotwise: Acuff, playing "himself," is a tenderfoot who somehow manages to come out on top when he heads westward. The villains (who aren't all that villainous) try to promote a phony stock deal, but Roy and his pals foils their plans. The comedy honors go to Guinn "Big Boy" Williams as a blowhard sheriff. Smoky Mountain Melody was scripted by Barry Shipman, the son of pioneering female filmmaker Nell Shipman.

Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake

Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake comes to cinemas with a fresh look for the 21st century and is ‘as bold and beautiful as ever’ (★★★★★ Telegraph). This thrilling, audacious and witty production is perhaps still best known for replacing the female corps-de-ballet with a menacing male ensemble, which shattered convention, turned tradition upside down and took the dance world by storm. Filmed Live at Sadler's Wells in January 2019.

A Song for Miss Julie

Two playwrights and a former burlesque queen travel to Louisiana to research a musical they're planning on a local Southern hero.

Casting

For her first television film, director Vera wants the perfect cast. But the first day of shooting is fast approaching and the numerous casting sessions have yet to find a suitable actress to play the leading role. Although the producer and crew are getting ever more exasperated with Vera, Gerwin is happy about the extra work, as he earns his money as an audition reader, delivering the lines of dialogue to the starry candidates at the various castings. When the male lead suddenly has to back out, Gerwin thinks that this might just be his chance.

Dig!

A documentary on the once promising American rock bands The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols. The friendship between respective founders, Anton Newcombe and Courtney Taylor, escalated into bitter rivalry as the Dandy Warhols garnered major international success while the Brian Jonestown Massacre imploded in a haze of drugs.

Porgy and Bess

In the early 1900s, the fictional Catfish Row section of Charleston, South Carolina serves as home to a black fishing community. Crippled beggar Porgy, who travels about in a goat-drawn cart, loves the drug-addicted Bess, who lives with stevedore Crown, the local bully.

West Side Story

In the slums of the upper West Side of Manhattan, tensions are high as a gang of Polish-Americans compete against a gang of recently immigrated Puerto Ricans, but this doesn't stop two romantics from each gang falling in love.

A Chorus Line

A group of dancers congregate on the stage of a Broadway theatre to audition for a new musical production directed by Zach. After the initial eliminations, seventeen hopefuls remain, among them Cassie, who once had a tempestuous romantic relationship with Zach. She is desperate enough for work to humble herself and audition for him; whether he's willing to let professionalism overcome his personal feelings about their past remains to be seen.

Rent

This rock opera tells the story of one year in the life of a group of bohemians struggling in late 1980s East Village, New York, USA. The film centers around Mark and Roger, two roommates. While a tragedy has made Roger numb to new experiences, Mark begins capturing their world through his attempts to make a personal movie. In the year that follows, they and their friends deal with love, loss, and working together.

National Theatre Live: The Habit of Art

National 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 twenty-five 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.

La magia de los Parchís

Fontána pre Zuzanu 2

Zuzana grew up and took her first blows from life. She got caught up in bad company, ended up in prison and after her release she tries to start again. She meets Juraj, a sympathetic driver, but when he seems to have found what she was looking for in him, he leaves her to try his luck in pop music. On top of that, Zuzana has to fight off attacks from her former partner Rony, now a rich gangster, who tries to seduce her. There is something for every teenager in this attractive musical. From a series of action scenes, shootouts, fights, love, the male friendship of the tough guys and their flashy trucks, to smuggled guns, mobsters holding the corrupt police and judiciary in their grip, plenty of songs and humour, and a glimpse into the corrupt backstage of show business.

The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan

The career of W. S. Gilbert, a barrister turned comic librettist, and Arthur Sullivan, a composer turned against his will to light music, who together wrote fifteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, to great public acclaim.

Deep Purple - California Jam 1974

Live performance from British rock band Deep Purple recorded at the California Jam festival at the Ontario Motor Speedway in April 1974. Playing to a crowd of over 200,000 people, the band perform hits including 'Smoke On the Water', 'Might Just Take Your Life' and 'Burn'.

Dearest Enemy

This live TV adaptation of the Broadway musical "Dearest Enemy" from 1925 is based on an American Revolutionary War incident in September 1776 when Mary Lindley Murray, under orders from General George Washington, detained General William Howe and his British troops by serving them cake, wine and conversation in her Kips Bay, Manhattan home long enough for some 4,000 American soldiers, fleeing their loss in the Battle of Brooklyn, to reassemble in Washington Heights and join reinforcements to make a successful counterattack.

The Three from the Filling Station

Die Drei von der Tankstelle, meaning The Three from the Gas Station, was advertised as a German operetta when release and with it’s star studded cast would become the forerunner of Musical films. Even today the soundtrack of the comic harmonists is popular in Germany.

Meet Me in St. Louis

Young love and childish fears highlight a year in the life of a turn-of-the-century family up to the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.

Mother India

A poverty-stricken woman raises her sons through many trials and tribulations. But no matter the struggles, always sticks to her own moral code.

Hot Summer

In this East German teen musical, a group of girls are planning to take their summer vacation together on the Baltic coast. When a loud and obnoxious group of boys intrudes on their holiday, the girls are horrified to learn that the boys have the same vacations plans as them. The two groups quarrel with each other and compete over a number of things, but gradually an attraction starts to form.