National Theatre to welcome full capacity audiences this month

The National Theatre is returning to performances with full capacity audiences from next week. Additional seating is now be available for performances of After Life from 27 July
alongside the previously-announced productions Rockets and Blue Lights in the Dorfman
theatre and Paradise in the Olivier theatre.

After Life will be the first production at the National to feature full capacity crowds since performances of The Visit and The Seven Streams of the River Ota on Saturday 14 March 2020. The theatre announced its closure due to the coronavirus outbreak the following Monday.

Luke Thallon in After Life. Photo: Johan Persson

Subsequent productions of Death of England: Delroy, which closed early due to the reintroduction of COVID restrictions, and Under Milk Wood, which closes today following its full run in the Olivier Theatre, played to socially distanced crowds.

Full details on audience safety measures for the full capacity audiences at the National can be found on the their website here.

Based on the film by Hirokazu Kore-eda, with concept by Bunny Christie, Jeremy Herrin and Jack Thorne, After Life is a surreal and powerfully human look at the way we live our lives, asking who you would choose to live with for eternity. It runs until 31 July.

Rockets and Blue Lights is directed by Miranda Cromwell, and first staged at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester. This astonishing and fiercely political new play by Winsome Pinnock was named winner of the 2018 Alfred Fagon Award and is booking from 25 August until 9 October.

Lesley Sharp (Philoctetes) in rehearsal for Paradise. Photo: Helen Murray

Director Ian Rickson returns to the National Theatre following his acclaimed, sold-out runs of Translations, with Kae Tempest's Paradise, running from 4 August to 11 September. The all-female company, with Lesley Sharp as Philoctetes, will perform amidst a dramatic wasteland designed by Rae Smith (War Horse, Barber Shop Chronicles).

Kae Tempest (Brand New Ancients, Let Them Eat Chaos) is winner of the Ted Hughes Award, has been nominated for the Costa Book Award for Poetry, and twice-nominated for the Mercury Prize.

Additional tickets for all productions are on-sale now.