book tickets
Royal Opera House Live: The Marriage of Figaro
Sung in Italian with English subtitles.
Servants Figaro and Susanna are filled with excitement on their wedding day, but there’s a hitch: their employer, the Count Almaviva, has dishonourable intentions of his own towards the bride-to-be.
With more twists than a page boy’s stockings, the story of Mozart’s comic opera will surprise and delight you at every turn. Come for the music and stay for the cross-dressing hilarity, all unfolding over the course of one crazy, topsy-turvy day in the Almaviva household. Royal Opera Music Director Antonio Pappano conducts a truly international cast in David McVicar’s timeless production.
The performance will last approximately 3 hours 35 minutes, including one 30 minute interval.
Courtyard Theatre
£16
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Royal Opera House Live: Turandot
Puccini’s final opera is a glorious pageant of rich colour, dance and drama.
In the court of Princess Turandot, suitors who fail to solve her riddles are brutally killed.
But when a mysterious Prince answers one correctly, suddenly he holds all the power – and a glorious secret. When life hangs in the balance, can love conquer all?
Puccini’s score is rich in musical marvels (featuring the famous aria ‘Nessun dorma’), while Andrei Serban’s production draws on Chinese theatrical traditions to evoke a colourful fantasy tableau of ancient Peking. Antonio Pappano conducts Anna Pirozzi in the title role and Yonghoon Lee as Calaf.
Courtyard
£16
National Theatre Live: Life of Pi (12A)
by Yann Martel, adapted by Lolita Chakrabarti, directed by Max Webster.
Puppetry, magic and storytelling combine in a unique, Olivier Award-winning stage adaptation of the best-selling novel.
After a cargo ship sinks in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, a 16-year-old boy named Pi is stranded on a lifeboat with four other survivors – a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan and a Royal Bengal tiger. Time is against them, nature is harsh, who will survive?
Filmed live in London’s West End and featuring state-of-the-art visuals, the epic journey of endurance and hope is bought to life in a breath-taking new way for cinemas screens.
Courtyard Theatre
£16
Royal Opera House Live: Cinderella
A new production of the much-loved Royal Ballet fairytale classic.
Royal Ballet Founder Choreographer Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella celebrates its 75th anniversary this Season.
The ballet’s opening night in 1948, featuring Moira Shearer and Michael Somes in the lead roles, was received rapturously. After over a decade away from the Royal Opera House stage, Ashton’s timeless reworking of Charles Perrault’s famous rags-to-riches story returns, showcasing the choreographer’s deft musicality and the beauty of Prokofiev’s transcendent score.
A creative team steeped in the magic of theatre, film, dance and opera brings new atmosphere to Cinderella’s ethereal world of fairy godmothers and pumpkin carriages, handsome princes and finding true love.
Courtyard
£16
National Theatre Live: Good
David Tennant (Doctor Who) makes a much-anticipated return to the West End in a blistering reimagining of one of Britain’s most powerful, political plays.
As the world faces its Second World War, John Halder, a good, intelligent German professor, finds himself pulled into a movement with unthinkable consequences.
Olivier Award-winner Dominic Cooke (Follies) directs C.P Taylor’s timely tale, with a cast that also features Elliot Levey (Coriolanus) and Sharron Small (The Bay). Filmed live at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London.
Courtyard Theatre
£16
Book Club
Share your thoughts on contemporary fiction with other readers in a welcoming and relaxed atmosphere.
This season our Book Club will be reading
Thur 20 Apr
The Promise by Damon Galgut
293 Pages
The Promise charts the crash and burn of a white South African family. The Swarts are gathering for Ma's funeral. The younger generation, detest everything the family stand for, not least the failed promise to the Black woman who has worked for them her whole life. After years of service, Salome was promised her own house, her own land... yet somehow, as each decade passes, that promise remains unfulfilled.
The narrator's eye shifts and blinks: moving fluidly between characters, flying into their dreams; deliciously lethal in its observation. And as the country moves from old deep divisions to its new so-called fairer society, the lost promise of more than just one family hovers behind the novel's title.
Thur 11 May - The love songs of W.E.B du Bois by Honoré Fanone Jeffers
Thur 15 June - Half of a yellow sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Thur 13 July - The power and the glory by Graham Greene
Thur 10 Aug - The God of small things by Arundhati Roy
Suitable for 18+ years.
Spaces are limited, early booking is advised to avoid disappointment.
Spring
Thur 19 Jan, 16 Feb, 16 Mar, 20 Apr
Summer
Thur 11 May, 15 Jun, 13 Jul, 10 Aug
7.30pm – 9.30pm
£5 per session (includes a glass of wine or soft drink from the bar)
Royal Opera House Live: The Sleeping Beauty
Magic and fairytale characters are brought to life through ballet in this well-known family favourite.
The Sleeping Beauty holds a very special place in The Royal Ballet’s heart and history. It was the first performance given by the Company when the Royal Opera House reopened at Covent Garden after World War II. In 2006, this original staging was revived and has been delighting audiences ever since.
Frederick Ashton famously cited the pure classicism of Marius Petipa’s 19th-century ballet as a private lesson in the atmospheric art and craft of choreography. Be swept away by Tchaikovsky’s ravishing music and Oliver Messel’s sumptuous fairytale designs with this true gem from the classical ballet repertory.
Courtyard Theatre
£16
Theatre Week
Led by Sideways Drama
Make a Play in 4 Days!
Come along and dive into the world of theatre, writing, directing and star in a brand new play!
Tues 15 - Fri 18 Aug | 10am - 4pm
£160 | £145 Advantage Card holders
There will be film screenings every day after the course has finished:
Tues - Thur 4.15pm – 5.30pm (approx)
Titles are still to be confirmed – keep an eye on the website for details!
Food:
Participants can order lunch daily from our Café Bar by filling out the Lunchtime Choice Form at the registration desk.
The Lunchtime Menu is £7.50 and includes a choice of:
• Healthy Veggie Platter
• Penne Pomodoro
• Cheese & Ham or Cheese & Tomato Pizza with Salad
• Fish Fingers with chips
• Chicken Nuggets with chips
Plus a soft drink and a tub of ice cream
Alternatively there a Picnic Bag is £5 and includes:
• A Tuna, Ham or Cheese roll
• Fruit juice, biscuit, veggie sticks and a packet of Pom Bear crisps
- 15 Aug from £160
- 16 Aug FREE
- 2 more dates...
National Theatre Live: The Best of Enemies
David Harewood (Homeland) and Zachary Quinto (Star Trek) play feuding political rivals in James Graham’s (Sherwood) multiple award-winning new drama.
In 1968 America two men fight to become the next president. But all eyes are on the battle between two others: the cunningly conservative William F. Buckley Jr., and the unruly liberal Gore Vidal.
During a new nightly television format, they debate the moral landscape of a shattered nation. As beliefs are challenged and slurs slung, a new frontier in American politics is opening and television news is about to be transformed forever.
Jeremy Herrin (All My Sons) directs this blistering political thriller, filmed live in London’s West End.
Courtyard Theatre
£16
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