Hamlet, National Theatre Live

What is National Theatre Live? 

National Theatre Live cinema – or National Theatre on Screen – launched in 2009 with a broadcast of Phèdre starring Helen Mirren, and has since broadcast over twenty other productions live from the National Theatre in cinemas, UK and worldwide. Each broadcast is filmed in front of a live audience, with cameras carefully positioned throughout the auditorium to ensure that audiences get the 'best seat in the house'. National Theatre on Screen invites the spirit of the National Theatre, in allowing their best productions to reach as wide an audience as possible.

National Theatre Live: Hamlet, Benedict Cumberbatch

Get ready for the most exciting next instalment of National Theatre Live: Hamlet, London. UK cinemas welcome the Lyndsey Turner's adaptation of Shakespeare's play to over 550 screens nationwide: broadcasting live from the Barbican, Hamlet will be showing at NT live cinemas, London and nationwide, on October 18, and will be a brilliant opportunity to catch this Shakespearean classic on the silver screen.

Lyndsey Turner, Hamlet

With this year’s Olivier for Best Director added to an already extensive list of accolades, Lyndsey Turner has helmed such theatrical triumphs as Posh and Chimerica, and is set to direct this adaptation of the Bard’s turn-of-the-17th-Century masterpiece. She has recruited visionary set designer Es Devlin, whose eclectic CV has seen her building an aesthetic adventure for the performances of popstars including Miley Cyrus and Kanye West, along with some of the most stunning sets seen on the stage (Chimerica, Almeida; The Nether, Royal Court). This Hamlet will be produced by Sonia Friedman Productions, the tour de force behind the biggest blockbusters on both Broadway and the West End, including The Book of Mormon and Mark Rylance’s Twelfth Night and Richard III.

Hamlet: Benedict Cumberbatch

The hottest actor in the world thanks to the storming success of Sherlock, his bumbling brand of charm, and his spectacular cheekbones, Cumberbatch appears to have the Midas touch; it is therefore unsurprising that, having mentioned in an interview with The Telegraph in 2012 that Hamlet was a role he had been “interested in for a long time”, the stage has come knocking. This starry casting of Shakespeare’s most complex character follows a recent deluge of big name Hamlets: Jude Law, Rory Kinnear, David Tennant and Michael Sheen have all played the Dane in recent years. Cumberbatch is merely next in line.

National Theatre Live: tickets

Hamlet smashed records last summer as the fastest selling show in the history of London theatre. It's no surprise, then, that National Theatre Live are releasing tickets for the live screening over six months ahead of the performance. They go on sale on March 16, so book your front row seat to Cumberbatch as Hamlet and enjoy this blockbuster stage performance in the luxury of your local cinema. We're predicting another sell-out.