Footlights Society 2025/26 Programme
NT Live The Playboy of the Western World
Nicola Coughlan (Bridgerton) joins Éanna Hardwicke (The Sixth Commandment) and Siobhán McSweeney (Derry Girls) in John Millington Synge’s riveting play of youth and self-discovery.
Pegeen Flaherty’s life is turned upside down when a young man walks into her pub claiming that he’s killed his father. Instead of being shunned, the killer becomes a local hero and begins to win hearts, that is, until a second man unexpectedly arrives on the scene…
Filmed live on stage at the National Theatre, Caitríona McLaughlin directs this darkly funny tale full to the brim with secrets.
The Met's El Ultimo Sueno de Frida y Diego
On May 30, the Metropolitan Opera’s 2025–26 Live in HD season comes to a close with a live transmission of American composer Gabriela Lena Frank’s first opera, a magical-realist portrait of Mexico’s painterly power couple Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, with libretto by Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Nilo Cruz. Fashioned as a reversal of the Orpheus and Euridice myth, the story depicts Frida, sung by leading mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, leaving the underworld on the Day of the Dead and reuniting with Diego, portrayed by baritone Carlos Álvarez.
NT Live Les Liaisons Dangereuses
BAFTA Award-winner Lesley Manville (Phantom Thread) joins Aidan Turner (Rivals) in a striking new staging of Christopher Hampton’s celebrated adaptation of the classic novel, where, among the glittering salons of the super-rich, one misstep can mean ruin.
Marquise de Merteuil is a master in the art of survival. Alongside the magnetic Vicomte de Valmont, they turn seduction into strategy and weaponise desire. But when their alliance collapses into rivalry, the battle between them threatens to destroy everyone in their path.
Filmed live on stage at the National Theatre, Marianne Elliott (Angels in America) directs this thrilling game of love, lies, and social warfare.
Turner & Constable
Pembridge Parish Hall is bringing one of British art's great rivalries to our screen. Turner & Constable, the latest from Exhibition on Screen, marks the 250th anniversary of the births of J.M.W. Turner and John Constable — two painters who transformed landscape art in completely opposite directions. Critics of the day called it a clash of "fire and water": Turner's blazing skies and emotional drama against Constable's quiet, idealised rural England.
Directed by David Bickerstaff, the film has been made with privileged access to Tate Britain's blockbuster exhibition Rivals and Originals, running until 12 April. Expect intimate views of sketchbooks, personal belongings, and expert commentary that places the two side by side — as they so often were in life. Sit back and enjoy.
