People

Thursday, March 21, 3 pm

PLEASE NOTE THE CORRECT TIME IS 3 PM!

OLLI Building

Award-winning writer Alan Bennett is reunited with director Nicholas Hytner and Olivier Award-winning actress Frances de la Tour, with whom he worked on The History Boys and The Habit of Art.

People spoil things; there are so many of them and the last thing one wants is them traipsing through one’s house. But with the park a jungle and a bath on the billiard table, what is one to do? Dorothy (Frances de la Tour) wonders if an attic sale could be a solution.

Alan Bennett is one of Britain’s most celebrated playwrights, and the much anticipated People is the sixth of his plays to have its premiere at the National Theatre. Following its original run at the National Theatre, The History Boys transferred to Broadway, winning the Tony Award for Best Play in 2006, and toured internationally before being turned into a film, again directed by Nicholas Hytner and with a cast including Frances de la Tour.

Bennett and Hytner also collaborated on the award-winning play and film The Madness of King George and their last stage production, The Habit of Art, was broadcast as part of National Theatre Live in 2010.

This House

Thursday, May 16, 2 pm

OLLI Building

It’s 1974 and the corridors of Westminster ring with the sound of infighting and backbiting as Britain’s political parties battle to change the future of the nation, whatever it takes. In this hung parliament, the ruling party holds on by a thread. Votes are won and lost by one, fist fights erupt in the bars, and ill MPs are hauled in to cast their votes.

It’s a time when a staggering number of politicians die, and age-old traditions and allegiances are thrown aside in the struggle for power.

James Graham’s biting, energetic and critically-acclaimed new play strips politics down to the practical realities of those behind the scenes who roll up their sleeves, and on occasion bend the rules, to manoeuvre a diverse and conflicting chorus of MPs within the Mother of all Parliaments.

★★★★★
Daily Express, Daily Telegraph

★★★★
Daily Mail, Evening Standard, Guardian, Independent, Sunday Express, Sunday Times, The Times

‘A funny and moving political epic. Another hit is born.’ The Times

‘James Graham’s superb new drama held everyone enthralled throughout... Funny, touching and cliff-hangingly suspenseful.’ Daily Telegraph

‘Jeremy Herrin’s production recaptures, with abundant theatricality, the mayhem of Westminster politics.’ Guardian

'Aided by helmer Herrin's pedal-to-the-floor pace, Graham kicks off with the kind of action-packed exposition for which The West Wing was celebrated.' Variety

‘Astute, funny and hugely enjoyable.’ Financial Times

The Audience

June 13 at 2 pm (live broadcast from London) SOLD OUT

June 13 at 7 pm (encore)

June 14 at 2 pm (encore)

Venue: OLLI Building

"The Audience is going to be one of the theatrical highlights of 2013." ~ Daily Mail

Helen Mirren reprises her Academy Award winning role as Queen Elizabeth II in the highly-anticipated West End production of The Audience, broadcast as part of National Theatre Live.

For sixty years Elizabeth II has met each of her twelve Prime Ministers in a weekly audience at Buckingham Palace – a meeting like no other in British public life – it is private. Both parties have an unspoken agreement never to repeat what is said. Not even to their spouses.

The Audience breaks this contract of silence – and imagines a series of pivotal meetings between the Downing Street incumbents and their Queen. From Churchill to Cameron, each Prime Minister has used these private conversations as a sounding board and a confessional – sometimes intimate, sometimes explosive.

From young mother to grandmother, these private audiences chart the arc of the second Elizabethan Age. Politicians come and go through the revolving door of electoral politics, while she remains constant, waiting to welcome her next Prime Minister.

The Audience reunites writer Peter Morgan and Academy Award-winning actress Helen Mirren following their collaboration on the critically-acclaimed movie sensation The Queen.

The Audience is directed by Academy Award-nominated director Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot, The Hours) and presented in the West End by Matthew Byam Shaw for Playful Productions, Robert Fox and Andy Harries.