Richard II
Before she embarked on Bridgerton, Adjoa Andoh starred as Richard II and co-directed, with Lynette Linton, this superb 2019 production, available on YouTube. Staged in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse with a cast entirely comprising women of colour, it’s a great way to warm up for Andoh’s Richard III this spring.
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Panto season’s not yet behind us – but you’ll have to be quick to catch this one. On 2 January, Ipswich’s New Wolsey theatre is live-streaming two performances of its carnivalesque rock’n’roll pantomime, which boasts more than 20 songs.
A Christmas Carol
New Year’s Day is your last chance to catch Tom Morris’s musical adaptation of Charles Dickens’ festive perennial at Bristol Old Vic, available for free on YouTube. In the year ahead, the theatre also has shows available on SkyArts.
Arms and the Man
The Orange Tree’s outgoing artistic director Paul Miller stages his final production for the theatre in Richmond and it’s another Shaw thing. After past revivals of Candida and Misalliance, this is a sparkling comedy of conflict. Watch on demand from 17-20 January.
All of Us
Francesca Martinez’s debut as a playwright is about austerity Britain and cuts to disability care – what she calls “an epic crime that is taking place behind closed doors”. Staged at the National’s Dorfman theatre, it was one of the best new plays of 2022 and is available from NT at Home.
Talking Hands
Three years after the coronavirus outbreak, the impact of life under lockdown is still widely felt. It’s explored in Deafinitely Theatre’s Talking Hands series of short films by deaf writers, directed by Paula Garfield. Two new films, by Abigail Gorman and Samantha Pearsall, presented in association with Paines Plough, are now online.
Antony and Cleopatra
Globe Player, the online home of that Wooden O on London’s South Bank, has released a handful of new archive titles including several productions from the Globe to Globe season in 2012. Staged a couple of years later, this version of Shakespeare’s romantic tragedy, directed by Jonathan Munby, stars Eve Best and Clive Wood.
Lessons in Temperament
Ontario’s Stratford festival has an expansive online offering including archive productions, docs and new short films created by festival artists. New on Stratfest@Home, written and performed by James Smith, is this documentary-drama hybrid about what happens when pianos, and life itself, go out of tune.
London International Mime festival
The annual extravaganza returns this month with performances across venues in London. The online offering includes, from 17 January to 5 February, a 2016 film of Marcel, with Jos Houben and the late Marcello Magni as a delightful double act.
Funny Girl
The great Sheridan Smith returns to the West End this year playing Shirley Valentine. Revisit her last leading role on stage – as Fanny Brice, “show business incarnate” – in this film of the 2017 Funny Girl tour, recorded in Manchester. Available from Digital Theatre.
