The National Theatre has an international reputation for its award-winning work. Three theatres housed under one roof present classics, comedies, new writing, plays for children and musicals. Enjoy free exhibitions, live foyer music, backstage tours and the theatre bookshop.
Shopping at the National Theatre
Eating and drinking at National Theatre
South Bank, London, SE1 9PX
Tel: 020 7452 3000, www.nationaltheatre.org.uk
Show on map
 Feel free to hum along, tap your toes or just sit back and listen to a lively mix of music from around the world... from cool jazz to upbeat ethnic and much, much more. Mondays to Fridays at 5.45pm and Saturdays at 1pm & 5.45pm, unless otherwise indicated. |
 A fascinating insight into the work behind bringing NT productions to the stage. Knowledgeable, enthusiastic guides explore the National Theatre’s three auditoriums, before taking you behind the scenes. Tours run up to six times daily. |
 An eclectic programme of pre-performance events that celebrate all aspects of the arts, offering the chance to learn about the National's work and discover more about theatre. This month features: Mark Ravenhill, Free the Word! and Nicholas Hytner. |
Happy Now?
16 Jan-10 May 08A truthful, darkly comic take on contemporary life and how to survive it.  A chance encounter at a conference hotel plays upon Kitty’s mind as she struggles to balance personal freedom with family life, fidelity and a testing job. Her husband seems more interested in misplaced apostrophes than his marriage, her parents are looking down the barrel of oblivion and, although she might toy with joining a gym, Kitty’s running out of time for big changes. |
 Simon Russell-Beale plays Undershaft in Bernard Shaw’s radical state-of-the-nation play which confronts big questions with brutal panache. |
 Set against a back-drop of fading Empire, war, the Suez crisis, vintage champagne, adultery and vicious Tory politics at the Ritz, Howard Brenton’s Never So Good paints the portrait of a brilliant, witty but complex man, at times comically and, in the end, tragically out of kilter with his times. |
Stanislavski on stage
9 Apr-10 May 08An exhibition of rarely seen photographs from the archive of The Stanislavski Centre.  Co-founder of the Moscow Art Theatre, Stanislavski devised the first formalised system of actor-training, which revolutionised approaches to performance in the West. |
 This epic sweep of a play takes us from a contemporary Westminster Abbey to the Arctic ship Fram in a major new work by Britain’s foremost theatre poet, Tony Harrison, whose many plays for the NT include The Oresteia and The Trackers of Oxyrhynchus. |
 On a startlingly bright Autumn night in 2006 Harper Regan walked away from her home and her husband and her daughter and she kept walking. From Uxbridge to Stockport to Manchester and back again, Simon Stephens’ new play navigates the UK, exploring family, love and delusion; and how to live in a godless universe. |
The Year of Magical Thinking
25 Apr-20 May 08Vanessa Redgrave's award winning performance hits South Bank  The Year of Magical Thinking chronicles the aftermath of her husband’s sudden death. Following a sell-out run on Broadway in 2007, Vanessa Redgrave repeats her award-winning solo performance in David Hare’s celebrated production which now receives its UK premiere. |
Ashington Group: The Pitmen Painters
19 May-25 Jun 08A display of paintings, drawings and sculpture.  The Ashington Group of painters, pitmen most of them, flourished in Northumberland between the early thirties and the mid seventies. This is a display of paintings, drawings and sculpture by members of this unique body of artists. |
 A humorous and moving look at art, class and politics in a 1930s mining community. |
 A ferociously dark play by Thomas Middleton, set in an avaricious world that seethes with vice and retribution. Following his Olivier award-winning performance in The Man of Mode, Rory Kinnear returns to the National to play Vindice. |
 The story of impresario Max Reinhardt’s ambition to dissolve boundaries of theatre and the world it portrays. |
 New Connections is the world's most ambitious new writing programme for young actors creating theatre. |
 During his sentence in Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde wrote a letter to his lover, agonising over the lack of contact. A powerful, moving play. |
 The National’s summer festival of outdoor entertainment, featuring the best of British and international theatre and performance. FREE For details |
 A Slight Ache takes an oblique view of a long-married couple, when the arrival of a statuesque silent stranger splinters their marriage. |
 A woman lies dead on a bed in her wedding dress, a silver knife through her heart. The two men who loved her lie beside her. |
 Story of the women’s emancipation movement who refused to let the establishment stand in their way. |
