English Theatre

Here, in his own words, is the true story of America's wildest flying hero, of his extraordinary heroism, and of his greatest battle of all-the fight to survive. The World War II air war in the Pacific needed tough men like Colonel Pappy Boyington and his Black Sheep Squadron. The legendary Marine Corps officer and his bunch of misfits, outcasts, and daredevils gave a new definition to "hell-raising" - on the ground and in the skies.

Hedda and George have just returned from their honeymoon, but when her former lover Eilert appears with a brilliant new manuscript, George’s hopes for a professorship are dimmed. Hedda’s desperate dissatisfaction with her life leads to dangerous choices in this startling portrait of a woman hell-bent on destruction.

No one comes out of a movie talking about structure. What audiences love and remember about a movie are great scenes. Marlon Brando in the back seat in On the Waterfront giving his "I could'a been a contender" speech. Meg Ryan's fake orgasm in Katz's Deli in When Harry Met Sally with the climactic punch line: "I'll have what she's having." In Superbad, Jonah Hill professing "I love you" to his friend Michael Cera by touching his nose with a "boop".

As part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's progressive New Deal, the Work Progress Administration is created to support unemployed workers, including writers, artists, musicians and actors. The Federal Theatre Project, a major part of that programme, begins to stage critically acclaimed, subsidised and groundbreaking productions across America. From one of the world's great storytellers, The Playbook is an invigorating re-enactment of a terrifyingly prescient moment in twentieth-century American cultural history.

Cristabel Seagrave has always wanted her life to be a story, but there are no girls in the books in her dusty family library. For an unwanted orphan who grows into an unmarriageable young woman, there is no place at all for her in a traditional English manor. But from the day that a whale washes up on the beach at the Chilcombe estate in Dorset, and 12-year-old Cristabel plants her flag and claims it as her own, she is determined to do things differently.

Before Twilight and True Blood, only one vampire commanded “the children of the night". In this bloodthirsty tale of unholy terror, Count Dracula slips into Victorian London with a cargo of his native Transylvanian soil - so he can rest between victims. The city seems helpless against his frightful power, and only one man, Dr. Van Helsing, can stop the carnage. But to do this, he must uncover the vampire’s lair and pierce his heart with a wooden stake.

 The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare delivers a fresh and exciting new take on the life of William Shakespeare, offering listeners a biography that brings to the foreground his working life as a poet, playwright, and actor. It also explores the nature of his relationships with his friends, colleagues, and family and asks important questions about the stories we tell about Shakespeare based on the evidence we actually have about the man himself.  

April 14, 1865. A famous actor pulls a trigger in the presidential balcony, leaps to the stage, and escapes, as the president lies fatally wounded. In the panic that follows, forty-six terrified people scatter in and around Ford's Theater as soldiers take up stations by the doors and the audience surges into the streets chanting, "Burn the place down!" This is the untold story of Lincoln's assassination: The forty-six stage hands, actors, and theater workers on hand for the bewildering events in the theater that night.

Picking up where his previous memoir leaves off, Sledge, a young marine in the First Division, traces his company's movements and charts his own difficult passage to peace following his horrific experiences in the Pacific. He reflects on his duty in the ancient city of Peiping (now Beijing) and recounts the difficulty of returning to his hometown of Mobile, Alabama, and resuming civilian life haunted by the shadows of close combat.

Putting It Together chronicles the two-year odyssey of creating the iconic Broadway musical Sunday in the Park with George. Through conversations between Lapine and Sondheim, as well as most of the production team, and with a treasure trove of personal photographs, sketches, script notes, and sheet music, the two Broadway icons lift the curtain on their beloved musical. Putting It Together is a deeply personal remembrance of their collaboration and friendship and the highs and lows of that journey, one that resulted in the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning classic.

Fully restored and remastered, Heritage Media presents the greatest of vintage artists in classic dramas from English and Irish Literature. Here is the legendary Laurence Olivier starring in ‘The Canterville Ghost’, adapted from the original tale by Oscar Wilde and Laurence Olivier starring in 'Lord Arthur Savill's Crime' adapted from the original tale by Oscar Wilde.Theatre Royal is a unique series of classic radio dramas produced in the 1950's by the late Harry Alan Towers.

Actors! Engage your mind and your body in order to develop your characters fully. The Lucid Body technique breaks up stagnant movement patterns and expands your emotional and physical range. Through energy analysis, this program shows how to use physical training to create characters from all walks of life - however cruel, desolate, or neurotic those characters may be.

On a rooftop in Elizabethan London two worlds collide. Shay is a messenger-girl and trainer of hawks who sees the future in the patterns of birds. Nonesuch is the dark star of the city's fabled child theatre scene, as famous as royalty yet lowly as a beggar. Together they create The Ghost Theatre: a troupe staging magical plays in London's hidden corners. As their hallucinatory performances incite rebellion among the city's outcasts, the pair's relationship sparks and burns against a backdrop of the plague and a London in flames.

To avoid financial ruin, the Bottle family’s theatre troupe has left London behind, travelling to the north of England by train. With new audiences to play to and less competition, they hope to make enough money to pay off their debts back home. But will their plans be foiled by the odious Olio Sleevery? It’s time for young actors Rosie and Charlie to save the day and, with the help of their new friend Edie Boiler, ensure the thunderous success of the company's first performance.

Charlie Fairbanks was born in the dead center of the United States at the dead center of the 20th century. Americans are going to the moon, and Charlie’s sure he’ll be the first one there. But as he shines his spotlight on the moon, so too does it illuminate the darker side to his nation’s history. Radio is a story about memory, love and spaceships.  

In an alternate London, the city's Theatre District is a walled area south of the river where an immersive production - the Show - has been running for centuries, growing ever bigger, more sprawling and lavish. The Show is open to anyone who can afford a ticket but the District itself is a closed world. Juliet's mother died when she was a baby. Brought up by her emotionally distant father and even more distant stepmother, she has never felt wanted. It's only when her father passes away that Juliet - now nineteen - learns her birth was registered in the District.

1960: The world is dancing on the edge of revolution and nowhere more so than on the Greek island of Hydra, where a circle of poets, painters and musicians live tangled lives, ruled by the writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston, troubled king and queen of Bohemia.

Broadway’s most esteemed visionaries tell all - how they got started in the business, how they chose projects, how they raise money, why some of their shows were huge hits and others flopped, and much more. From Flo Ziegfeld and David Merrick, from Joseph Papp, from Cameron Mackintosh, from today’s up-and-coming new generation of producers - here are priceless words of wisdom.

Maisie Cooper is looking for peace and quiet. But the arrival of a troupe of actors for a new production at the local theatre turn her best laid plans upside down. Among them is the young French actress, Adélaïde Amour, who appeals to Maisie for help as she struggles to prepare for her new role. As opening night approaches, a terrible crime is committed, and a body is found concealed behind the scenes in the theatre. Can Maisie unravel a real-life plot worth of a great play? Or will the killer strike again?

When Mexican-born novelist Lucia lands her first TV writing job, she immediately feels out of place in the White, male-dominated writers' room. Before long, she’s drawn to the only other Latino around, a janitor named Abel, and the two begin an unlikely friendship—one that’s tested when Abel’s confidences start showing up in Lucia’s scripts.