Another week, another wave of amazing plays, operas and musicals from famed performing art stages around the globe. Best part? You don’t have to pay a single dirham or leave your home in the UAE.
The Royal National Theatre in London and New York’s Metropolitan Opera are setting up a slew of brilliant plays and shows this May, and they include stellar casts including Tom Hiddleston, Gillian Anderson and many more.
That’s not all, as composer Andrew Lloyd Webber’s biggest musicals are streaming online for free on YouTube, thanks to ‘The Shows Must Go On!’. This time round, expect musical fantasy Cats. Now that’s plenty of entertainment to keep us occupied this May.
National Theatre Live
It’s little surprise that the National Theatre has been doing such a great job entertaining us all. The NT Live programme was designed to beam productions from the NT into cinemas across the country, but there are, of course, no cinemas in operation at present. So the NT has switched to broadcasting via its YouTube channel.
National Theatre at Home launched on YouTube on April 2, and now, every Thursday 7pm BST (10pm GST) sees a new National Theatre play released – free to watch for one week.
Past shows included One Man, Two Guvnors, starring a pre-chatshow-days James Corden, which drew more than 2.5 million viewers. This latest wave is just as tantalising, with the NT definitely keeping its viewers on their toes by saving the Hiddleston until last.
Check out the schedule below:
Thursday May 14
Barber Shop Chronicles by Inua Ellams.
Thursday May 21
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, starring Gillian Anderson.
Thursday May 28
This House by James Graham.
Thursday June 4
Coriolanus by William Shakespeare, starring Tom Hiddleston.
Until Thu Jun 4, every Thu, 10pm onwards, www.youtube.com/channel/UCUDq1XzCY0NIOYVJvEMQjqw.
Metropolitan Opera
The New York-based Metropolitan Opera’s suspended 2019-2020 season would be over now, but the company is continuing to entertain audiences at home with its ninth straight week of free streamed performances each night, drawn from its popular series Live in HD.
Each of the operas begin streaming on the Met’s website (right here) each night at 7:30pm EDT (3.30am GST). Fairly early in the UAE, but don’t fret, as the shows will be viewable for 23 hours after the show.
Check out he schedule below:
Wednesday May 13
R. Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos
Starring Jessye Norman, Kathleen Battle and Tatiana Troyanos
Thursday May 14
Britten’s Peter Grimes
Starring Patricia Racette, Anthony Dean Griffey and Anthony Michaels-Moore
Friday May 15
Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor
Starring Joan Sutherland, Alfredo Kraus, Pablo Elvira and Paul Plishka
Saturday May 16
Verdi’s Rigoletto
Starring Diana Damrau, Oksana Volkova, Piotr Beczała and Željko Lučić
Sunday May 17
Verdi’s Nabucco
Starring Liudmyla Monastyrska, Jamie Barton, Russell Thomas, Plácido Domingo, and Dmitry Belosselskiy
Until Sun May 17. Daily, 3.30am onwards (available 23 hours after), www.metopera.org.
The Show Must Go On!
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group, in partnership with Universal, is offering free live streams of the greatest Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals, including such megahits as Cats and The Phantom of the Opera. A different Lloyd Webber musical streams each week on The Shows Must Go On!, a YouTube channel (right here) devoted to this project. Each show goes live on the channel on Friday at 7pm BST (10pm GST), and usually remains viewable for 48 hours afterward.
Now, Cats has arrived. Cats is a show about cats who sing light verse by T.S. Eliot in a junkyard. It’s is about Andrew Lloyd Webber writing a lot more melodies than he usually does and pulling many keepers right out of his hat.
Catch it on Friday May 15, kicking off on The Shows Must Go On! At 10pm and available up to 48 hours after it airs.
Fri May 15, 10pm onwards, www.youtube.com/theshowsmustgoon.
If you’re looking for more artsy things to do and watch in Dubai, click here, for Abu Dhabi, here, and for Sharjah, click here.
