NT Live: The Habit of Art

As part of a brilliant new initiative from the National Theatre of London, this new play from Alan Bennett (see the trailer here) - starring Richard Griffiths (Withnail and I, The History Boys) - will be shown on cinema screens as a live recording direct from the London stage (find out more at nt-online.org). Screenings are limited.

"Alan Bennett’s new play is as much about the theatre as it is about poetry or music. It looks at the unsettling desires of two difficult men, and at the ethics of biography. It reflects on growing old, on creativity and inspiration, and on persisting when all passion’s spent: ultimately, on the habit of art.

"Benjamin Britten, sailing uncomfortably close to the wind with his new opera, Death in Venice, seeks advice from his former collaborator and friend, WH Auden. During this imagined meeting, their first for twenty-five years, they are observed and interrupted by, amongst others, their future biographer and a young man from the local bus station."

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