Dick Whittington

The National Theatre is to stream Dick Whittington, for free via the National Theatre and The Shows Must Go On YouTube channels on the 23 December at 3pm GMT. The stream will then be available on demand until midnight on 27 December. The production will be filmed live during the performance in the Olivier theatre on the 19 December, in front of a socially distanced audience. Following the limited-window YouTube streams, it will then be made available on the newly launched National Theatre at Home platform from the 11 January for six weeks. At a time when many theatres across the country have sadly been forced to cancel or postpone their pantomimes, the National Theatre is celebrating panto’s place at the heart of British theatre. The free stream of Jude Christian and Cariad Lloyd’s hilarious version of Dick Whittington, directed by Ned Bennett, promises to provide festive fun to homes across the UK and around the world. First staged at Lyric Hammersmith in 2018 and freshly updated for 2020, Ned Bennett directs this wild and inventive production and explores what it is like to come from a small town and arrive in a big city today. With a host of colourful characters, irreverent jokes, talking animals and popular songs this is Dick Whittington as never seen before.