NT Live is an exciting initiative to broadcast live performances of plays onto cinema screens worldwide. Six performances will be filmed in high definition and broadcast live via satellite to selected Cineworld Cinemas, reaching a widespread audience live across the UK. Over 100 venues around the world will also screen the production. Broadcasts will also feature behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with artists. We hope to open the walls of the National Theatre and invite cinema audiences around the country and the world to share in the work they create. This year's highlights include Hamlet, Frankenstein and the The Cherry Orchard.

• 

  The Comedy Of Errors

  Release date: 1 March 2012

  Running time: 180 mins

  Director:

  Starring:

  Lenny Henry heads the cast in a contemporary staging of Shakespeare's frantic comedy, screened in The National Theatre's NT Live series. View more

  Lenny Henry heads the cast in a contemporary staging of Shakespeare's frantic comedy, screened in The National Theatre's NT Live series.

  Confirming Shakespeare's status as the father of the modern farce, this furiously paced comedy hinges on mistaken identity spiralling out of control to hilarious effect. Dominic Cook's new National Theatre staging also explores the play's modern resonances as a trio of immigrants find themselves adrift in an exotic land far from home. Lenny Henry plays Antipholus of Syracuse, who travels with his servant Dromio to distant Ephesus in search of their twin brothers, from whom they were separated at birth. No sooner have the duo set foot in this alien metropolis than they're mistaken for their siblings. They're also baffled by strange customs and unexplained hostilities. Meanwhile, the Antipholus twins' father, Aegeon, is captured while looking for his sons - and sentenced to death as an illegal immigrant!

  
   
• 

  She Stoops To Conquer

  Release date: 29 March 2012

  Running time: 180 mins

  Director: Jamie Lloyd

  Starring: Stavros Demetraki, David Fynn, Harry Hadden, John Heffernan, Cush Jumbo, Katherine Kelly, Steve Pemberton, Matthew Seadon, Timothy Speyer, Gavin Spokes, Sophie Thompson

  The National Theatre's NT Live series continues with Oliver Goldsmith's enduringly popular comedy of courtship, class, deception and family dysfunction. View more

  The National Theatre's NT Live series continues with Oliver Goldsmith's enduringly popular comedy of courtship, class, deception and family dysfunction.

  Wealthy Mr Hardcastle is eager to marry off his daughter Kate to Marlow, the son of an equally prosperous chum. To this end, Marlow has been invited to visit the Hardcastle pile. But having got lost on the way, he encounters idle playboy Lumpkin in an alehouse. Lumpkin decides to play a practical joke, telling Marlow that he is miles from his destination and directing him to a local inn, which is actually the Hardcastle residence. Here, he treats the lowly 'innkeeper' with snooty disdain, but Hardcastle decides to play along for the sake of the prospective marriage. Alas, Marlow has trouble relating to upper class ladies, but enjoys getting bawdy with the lower orders. When Kate realises this, she 'stoops to conquer', throwing herself into the role of barmaid. Soon the visitor is smitten...