The National Theatre marks the 400th anniversary year of Shakespeare’s death with the release of a free app for iPad and iPhone. Packed with videos, production photographs, costume and set designs, annotated scripts and more, it gives a unique glimpse behind the scenes of the NT, and demonstrates Shakespeare’s continuing relevance to the modern stage.
The app, titled National Theatre Shakespeare, draws together a wealth of incredible archive material from the 55 main-house Shakespeare productions the National has staged to date, from Peter O’Toole as Hamlet in 1963 and the 1964 all-male production of As You Like It, to the critically acclaimed 2013 Othello and Sam Mendes’ production of King Lear in 2014.
Users of the app will have access to exclusive video interviews including Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Derek Jacobi; an interactive timeline of production posters; hundreds of production and rehearsal photographs, costume illustrations, set designs, technical images, annotated scripts and other content from a selection of NT productions and an introduction to each production from journalist and critic Benedict Nightingale.
The app is supported by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund and is available to download here.
Click to purchase tickets for the National Theatre’s current productions The Plough And The Stars and Peter Pan.