Simon Russell Beale

The career of respected news presenter Douglas is threatened after he makes an ill-advised joke. With her 2 million social media followers, tech-savvy co-anchor Madeline could throw Douglas a lifeline by posting in his defense… but will she?

Open details →

Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of King Henry VIII, is named regent while the tyrant battles abroad. When the king returns, increasingly ill and paranoid, Katherine finds herself fighting for her own survival.

Open details →

In 17th century England, Mary Villiers molds her beautiful son, George, to seduce King James I, intending to gain riches and influence through outrageous schemes.

Open details →

A lyric documentary about home, time, memory and mortality, commissioned by the Centre Pompidou to accompany their retrospective of Terence Davies' work. Davies began to design this film based on his poems, but passed away before it could be realised. The film was produced posthumously according to Davies' instructions.

Open details →

The Targaryen dynasty is at the absolute apex of its power, with more than 15 dragons under their yoke. Most empires crumble from such heights. In the case of the Targaryens, their slow fall begins when King Viserys breaks with a century of tradition by naming his daughter Rhaenyra heir to the Iron Throne. But when Viserys later fathers a son, the court is shocked when Rhaenyra retains her status as his heir, and seeds of division sow friction across the realm.

Open details →

After his retirement is interrupted by Gorr the God Butcher, a galactic killer who seeks the extinction of the gods, Thor Odinson enlists the help of King Valkyrie, Korg, and ex-girlfriend Jane Foster, who now wields Mjolnir as the Mighty Thor. Together they embark upon a harrowing cosmic adventure to uncover the mystery of the God Butcher’s vengeance and stop him before it’s too late.

Open details →

What are the secrets of our favourite TV shows? Famous names from both sides of the camera reflect on making some of the most popular and influential programs of all time.

Open details →

In 1943, two British intelligence officers concoct Operation Mincemeat, wherein their plan to drop a corpse with false papers off the coast of Spain would fool Nazi spies into believing the Allied forces were planning to attack by way of Greece rather than Sicily.

Open details →

Leonard is an English tailor who used to craft suits on London’s world-famous Savile Row. After a personal tragedy, he’s ended up in Chicago, operating a small tailor shop in a rough part of town where he makes beautiful clothes for the only people around who can afford them: a family of vicious gangsters.

Open details →

Poet Siegfried Sassoon survived the horrors of fighting in the First World War and was decorated for his bravery, but became a vocal critic of the government's continuation of the war when he returned from service. Adored by members of the aristocracy as well as stars of London's literary and stage world, he embarked on affairs with several men as he attempted to come to terms with his homosexuality.

Open details →

The radical new take on Dickens’ classic seeks both to exhume the original story’s gritty commentary on social inequality and the corrupting influence of greed, and to breathe new life into the lyricism of the original text by setting its scenes to extraordinary tableaux of modern dance.

Open details →

The hour before actors go on stage at the National Theatre in London is a performance in and of itself.

Open details →

The story of Nobel Prize winner Maria Skłodowska-Curie and her extraordinary scientific discoveries—through the prism of her marriage to husband Pierre—and the seismic and transformative effects their discovery of radium had on the 20th century.

Open details →

On a cold September morning in 1844 a young man from Bavaria stands on a New York dockside. Dreaming of a new life in the new world. He is joined by his two brothers and an American epic begins. 163 years later, the firm they establish – Lehman Brothers – spectacularly collapses into bankruptcy, and triggers the largest financial crisis in history.

Open details →

Simon Russell Beale plays William Shakespeare’s Richard II, broadcast live from the stage of the Almeida Theatre in London to cinemas.

Open details →

In 1561, Mary Stuart, widow of the King of France, returns to Scotland, reclaims her rightful throne and menaces the future of Queen Elizabeth I as ruler of England, because she has a legitimate claim to the English throne. Betrayals, rebellions, conspiracies and their own life choices imperil both Queens. They experience the bitter cost of power, until their tragic fate is finally fulfilled.

Open details →

In a world where everyone is striving for what is not worth having, no one is more determined to climb to the heights of English society than Becky Sharp.

Open details →

In 1960, a team of Israeli secret agents is deployed to find Adolf Eichmann, the infamous Nazi architect of the Holocaust, supposedly hidden in Argentina, and get him to Israel to be judged.

Open details →

Mexico, 1985. Juan and Wilson, two perennial Veterinary students, perpetrate an audacious heist in the National Museum of Anthropology, running away with a loot of more than hundred invaluable pieces of Mayan art, unaware of the consequences of their outrageous act.

Open details →

When dictator Joseph Stalin dies, his parasitic cronies square off in a frantic power struggle to become the next Soviet leader. As they bumble, brawl and back-stab their way to the top, the question remains — just who is running the government?

Open details →

A young Englishman plots revenge against his mysterious, beautiful cousin, believing that she murdered his guardian. But his feelings become complicated as he finds himself falling under the beguiling spell of her charms.

Open details →

On a distant island a man waits. Robbed of his position, power and wealth, his enemies have left him in isolation. But this is no ordinary man, and this no ordinary island. Prospero is a magician, able to control the very elements and bend nature to his will. When a sail appears on the horizon, he reaches out across the ocean to the ship that carries the men who wronged him. Creating a vast magical storm he wrecks the ship and washes his enemies up on the shore. When they wake they find themselves lost on a fantastical island where nothing is as it seems.

Open details →

Tarzan, having acclimated to life in London, is called back to his former home in the jungle to investigate the activities at a mining encampment.

Open details →

Fresh from her triumphs on Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe investigating time, Winston Churchill, and Donald Trump, Philomena Cunk has finally been given her own show - about William Shakespeare. Cunk will leave no stone unturned as she gets to the bottom of the Bard, visiting his birthplace, exploring the Globe, studying priceless artefacts and interviewing literally six different experts.

Open details →

From the stage of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, David Tennant, Catherine Tate and guests mark the life of William Shakespeare on the 400th anniversary of the playwright's death.

Open details →

Monteverdi in Mantua tells the story of the Duke of Mantua and his court composer Claudio Monteverdi during the turbulent times of the late Italian renaissance. From their volatile relationship would come one of the most revolutionary collections of music ever published: The Vespers of 1610. The programme is presented by Simon Russell Beale who visits Mantua and, together with conductor Harry Christophers and his choir “The Sixteen”, explores this major turning point in Western Music.

Open details →

In a woods filled with magic and fairy tale characters, a baker and his wife set out to end the curse put on them by their neighbor, a spiteful witch.

Open details →

Professor James Shapiro goes in search of the mysterious man behind The Duchess of Malfi, the son of a coachmaker who ended up rivalling Shakespeare.

Open details →

Some of literature's most terrifying characters, including Dr. Frankenstein, Dorian Gray, and iconic figures from the novel Dracula are lurking in the darkest corners of Victorian London. Penny Dreadful is a frightening psychological thriller that weaves together these classic horror origin stories into a new adult drama.

Open details →

An aged king decides to divide his kingdom between his three daughters, according to which of them is most eloquent in praising him. His favourite, Cordelia, says nothing. Simon Russell Beale, whose recent appearances at the National include Timon of Athens and Collaborators, takes the title role in Shakespeare’s tragedy.

Open details →