David Farnor | On 30, Mar 2020

Theatres across the UK may be shut due to safety restriction surrounding the coronavirus outbreak, but a growing number of venues and arts companies are using the web to give audiences their culture fix – and Hampstead Theatre joining the pack with not one but three productions streaming online for free.

The theatre was hot off the blocks in reacting to the entertainment industry shutdown, releasing its 2018 production of I and You, starring Maisie Williams, on Instagram’s IGTV platform last week. Now, it’s following that up with a trio of free titles on YouTube: Mike Bartlett’s Edward Snowden play Wild, Beth Steel’s miners strike drama Wonderland and Harold Brenton’s historical epic Drawing the Line.

All three were originally live-streamed on The Guardian’s website years ago and now, are returning to the web across three weeks, with each play available from Monday to Sunday. You can watch them all right here – read on for the full schedule:

Wild

Available: 30th March to 5th April
Runtime: 1 hour 50 minutes

Last week, Andrew was that guy with his girl lunching in KFC, discussing apartments and making plans for the future. Today he’s in Moscow, in an undisclosed hotel room, on the run and at risk of assassination.

Last week, a nobody. This week, America’s Most Wanted: a man who humiliated his country with one touch of a button.

Mike Bartlett’s darkly comic new play directed by James Macdonald explores the unexpected, bewildering, and life-changing consequences of challenging the status quo at a global level.

Wonderland

Available: 6th to 12th April
Runtime: 2 hours 35 minutes

The Midlands, 1984. Two young lads are about to learn what it is to be a miner, to be accepted into the close camaraderie and initiated into a unique workplace where sweat, toil, collapsing roofs and explosions are all to be met with bawdy humour.

London, 1984. A conflicted Tory MP, a brash American CEO and an eccentric maverick are the face of a radical Conservative government preparing to do battle with the most powerful workforce, the miners.

As the two sides clash, the miners fight for their livelihoods and families, and the government for its vision of a free Britain. Together they change the fabric of the nation forever.

Beth Steel’s Susan Smith Blackburn Prize nominated play, originally performed at Hampstead to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Miners Strike, is directed by Edward Hall.

Drawing the Line

Available: 13th to 19th April
Runtime: 2 hours 15 minutes

London, 1947. Summoned by the Prime Minister from the Court where he is presiding judge, Cyril Radcliffe is given an unlikely mission. He is to travel to India, a country he has never visited, and, with limited survey information, no expert support and no knowledge of cartography, he is to draw the border which will divide the Indian sub-continent into two new Sovereign Dominions. To make matters even more challenging, he has only six weeks to complete the task.

Wholly unsuited to his role, Radcliffe is unprepared for the dangerous whirlpool of political intrigue and passion into which he is plunged – untold consequences may even result from the illicit liaison between the Leader of the Congress Party and the Viceroy’s wife… As he begins to break under the pressure he comes to realise that he holds in his hands the fate of millions of people.

Harold Brenton’s sweeping epic directed by Howard Davies vividly unfolds the chaotic story of the partition that shaped the modern world.

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