The National Theatre took part in Disabled Access Day

The National Theatre has been taking part in Disabled Access Day since the initiative began in 2015 – and this year is no exception. On Saturday 11 March, audiences attended an audio-described performance of My Country; a work in progress at 2pm, with a pre-show Touch Tour beginning at 12.30pm. The Lyttelton flytower will be lit in Disabled Access Day colours throughout the weekend to mark the NT’s support of the initiative, which celebrates good access and encourages people to try something new.

This week will feature five further accessible events;

Platform: Pádraig Cusack and Rufus Norris on My Country; a work in progress Captioned discussion with live subtitling provided by STAGETEXT – Tuesday 14 March, 6.30pm
Lost Without Words Captioned Performance with live subtitling provided by STAGETEXT – Wednesday 15 March at 6pm
Lost Without Words Audio-Described Performance- Thursday 16 March at 6pm, with pre-show Touch Tour at 4.30pm
Amadeus Audio-Described Performance – Friday 17 March at 7.30pm
Amadeus Audio-Described Performance – Saturday 18 March at 2pm, with pre-show Touch Tour at 12noon

The above is an example of the NT’s year-round commitment to making the very best theatre and sharing it with as many people as possible.

Listings

My Country; a work in progress

In the words of people across the UK and Carol Ann Duffy

Directed by Rufus Norris

Dorfman Theatre

Britannia has called a meeting, to listen to her people. Form an orderly queue. In the months following the Brexit vote, a team of interviewers from the NT spoke to people nationwide, hearing their views on Britain, the community they live in, and the referendum.

Audio-Described Performance:

Saturday 11 March 2pm (with pre-show Touch Tour at 12.30pm)

Captioned Performance:

Monday 20 March, 8pm

Platform: Pádraig Cusack and Rufus Norris on My Country

The Project Producer and the NT’s Director discuss the show.

Captioned – Live subtitling provided by STAGETEXT:

Tuesday 14 March, 6.30pm

Lost Without Words

A co-production with Improbable

Dorfman Theatre

Imagine older actors in their 70s and 80s, actors who have spent their lives being other people, bringing life to other people’s words.

Imagine they were on stage with nothing but themselves and no words but their own. No script, no map, a different show every night, all they have is a lifetime of theatre experience to help them find their way.

Audio-Described Performance:

Thursday 16 March 6pm (with pre-show Touch Tour at 4.30pm)

Captioned Performance – Live subtitling provided by STAGETEXT:

Wednesday 15 March, 6pm

Amadeus

by Peter Shaffer

Olivier Theatre

Vienna: the music capital of the world.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a rowdy young prodigy, arrives 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.

Directed by Michael Longhurst, with Lucian Msamati as Salieri and live orchestral accompaniment by Southbank Sinfonia.

Audio-Described Performances:

Friday 17 March, 7.30pm

Saturday 18 March, 2pm (with pre-show Touch Tour at 12noon)

Due to popular demand, Amadeus will return to the Olivier Theatre in January 2018, with further accessible performances to be announced.

Twelfth Night

by William Shakespeare

Olivier Theatre

A ship is wrecked on the rocks. Viola is washed ashore but her twin brother Sebastian is lost. Determined to survive on her own, she steps out to explore a new land. Simon Godwin (Man and Superman) directs this joyous new production with Tamsin Greig as a transformed Malvolia.

Audio-Described Performances:

Friday 24 March, 7.30pm

Saturday 25 March, 2.00pm (with pre-show Touch Tour at 12.30pm)

Saturday 22 April, 2.00pm (with pre-show Touch Tour at 12.30pm)

Captioned Performances:

Saturday 8 April, 2.00pm

Tuesday 11 April, 7.30pm

Tuesday 18 April, 7.30pm

Ugly Lies the Bone

by Lindsey Ferrentino

Lyttelton Theatre

‘Beauty is but skin deep, ugly lies the bone; beauty dies and fades away, but ugly holds its own.’

Jess, a soldier returning home to Florida after three tours in Afghanistan, experiments with a pioneering virtual reality therapy. She builds a breath-taking new world where she can escape her pain. There, she begins to restore her relationships, her life and, slowly, herself. Award-winning playwright Lindsey Ferrentino makes her UK debut, directed by Indhu Rubasingham (The Motherf**ker with the Hat). The cast includes Kate Fleetwood, Ralf Little and Kris Marshall.

Audio-Described Performances:

Friday 31 March, 7.30pm

Saturday 1 April, 2.15pm (with pre-show Touch Tour at 12.45pm)

Captioned Performances:

Saturday 25 March, 2.15pm

Wednesday 29 March, 7.30pm

Monday 22 May, 7.30pm

Consent

A co-production with Out of Joint

by Nina Raine

Dorfman Theatre

Why is Justice blind? Is she impartial? Or is she blinkered?

This powerful, painful, funny play sifts the evidence in a rape case from every side and puts justice in the dock. Directed by Roger Michell.

Audio-Described Performances:

Friday 28 April, 7.30pm

Saturday 29 April, 2.30pm (with pre-show Touch Tour at 12.45pm)

Captioned Performances:

Monday 24 April, 7.30pm

Saturday 6 May, 2.30pm

Salomé

A new play by Yaël Farber

Olivier Theatre

The story has been told before, but never like this.

An occupied desert nation. A radical from the wilderness on hunger strike. A girl whose mysterious dance will change the course of the world.

Internationally acclaimed director Yaël Farber draws on multiple accounts to create her urgent, hypnotic production on the Olivier stage.

Audio-Described Performances:

Friday 30 June, 7.30pm

Saturday 1 July, 2.00pm (with pre-show Touch Tour at 12.30pm)

Captioned Performances:

Saturday 10 June, 2.00pm

Wednesday 5 July, 7.30pm

Barber Shop Chronicles

A new play by Inua Ellams

A co-production with Fuel and West Yorkshire Playhouse

Dorfman Theatre

Newsroom, political platform, local hot spot, confession box, preacher-pulpit and football stadium. For generations, African men have gathered in barber shops to discuss the world. This dynamic new play leaps from a barber shop in London to Johannesburg, Harare, Kampala, Lagos and Accra. These are the places where the banter can be barbed and the truth is always telling.

Audio-Described Performances:

Friday 7 July, 8pm

Saturday 8 July, 2pm (with a pre-show Touch Tour at 12.30pm)

Captioned Performances:

Thursday 22 June, 2pm

Thursday 6 July, 8pm

Common

A co-production with Headlong

A new play by DC Moore

Olivier Theatre

Mary’s the best liar, rogue, thief and faker in this whole septic isle. And now she’s back. As the factory smoke of the industrial revolution belches out from the cities, Mary is swept up in a battle for her former home. The common land, belonging to all, is disappearing.

Headlong’s Artistic Director Jeremy Herrin directs Anne-Marie Duff as Mary.

Captioned Performances:

Saturday 8 July, 2.00pm

Monday 10 July, 7.30pm

Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes

by Tony Kushner

Lyttelton Theatre

America in the mid-1980s. In the midst of the AIDS crisis and a conservative Reagan administration, New Yorkers grapple with life and death, love and sex, heaven and hell. Directed by Marianne Elliott.

Part One: Millenium Approaches

Audio-Described Performances:

Saturday 15 July 1.00pm (with a pre-show Touch Tour at 11.30am)

Monday 17 July, 7pm

Captioned Performances:

Monday 12 June, 7.00pm

Wednesday 12 July, 1pm

Wednesday 19 July, 7pm

Part Two: Perestroika

Audio-Described Performances:

Saturday 5 August, 7pm

Monday 7 August, 7pm

Captioned Performances:

Tuesday 25 July, 7pm

Thursday 10 August, 1pm

Wednesday 16 August, 7pm

Two Play Day

Captioned Performances:

Saturday 1 July, 1pm and 7pm

Platforms

Nicholas Hytner: Balancing Acts

Monday 22 May, 6pm, Lyttelton Theatre

Nicholas Hytner reveals the inside story of his 12 years at the helm of the National Theatre.

The platform will feature live speech-to-text captioned by STAGETEXT.

War Horse – On Tour

Based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo. Adapted by Nick Stafford.

In association with the award-winning Handspring Puppet Company

Following eight 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 novel by Michael Morpurgo, will embark on a UK tour from September 2017.

For tour dates visit warhorseonstage.com and for assisted performances please see the individual theatre’s website.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – in London’s West End and On Tour

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 Play’, the production brings Mark Haddon’s best-selling novel to thrilling life on stage, adapted by Simon Stephens and directed by Marianne Elliott.

For tour dates visit curiousonstage.com. There will be a relaxed performance on Monday 3 July at 7.30pm at Birmingham Hippodrome. For further assisted performances please see the individual theatre’s website.

Jane Eyre – On Tour

Adapted by Sally Cookson from 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 Sheffield, Aylesbury, Plymouth, Southampton, Edinburgh, York, Woking, Glasgow, Richmond, Canterbury, Cardiff, Newcastle, Milton Keynes, Norwich, Brighton, Leeds, Aberdeen, Birmingham and Hull.

For tour dates visit janeeyreonstage.co.uk and for assisted performances please see the individual theatre’s website.

My Country; a work in progress – On Tour

In the words of people across the UK and Carol Ann Duffy.

Directed by Rufus Norris

Following its run at the National Theatre, My Country; a work in progress will tour to the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, Derry Playhouse, Liverpool Playhouse, Home, Manchester, Leicester Curve, the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, Strike a Light Festival, Gloucester, the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Birmingham Rep, Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry, Theatre Clwyd, the Rozabaal in Amsterdam as part of the Holland Festival, Cambridge Arts Theatre and the Theatre Royal, Stratford East in London.