Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has opened many a door, both for readers as well as audiences of its screen and stage adaptations. When the Trainspotting and 28 Days Later filmmaker Danny Boyle tackled the treasured tale for Britain’s Royal National Theatre in 2011, his production also welcomed viewers around the globe into the then-new world of National Theatre Live.
Beamed into Australian cinemas direct from London, the Benedict Cumberbatch- and Jonny Lee Miller-starring take on the mother of all monster stories ‘was a lot of people’s introduction’ to the format, Katharine Thornton, Sharmill Films’ CEO, tells me. With its leads alternating roles night after night, swapping between playing Victor Frankenstein and The Creature, plenty of moviegoers went twice in order to see both versions.
Frankenstein wasn’t the first title from National Theatre’s stage-to-cinema program to screen in Australia, but with its array of encore seasons over the past decade and a half, it has proven one of NT Live’s hits, driven in no small part by glowing word of mouth.
Indeed, if you caught it and told your friends – or did the same with James Corden-led comedy One Man, Two Guvnors; the Helen Mirren-led The Audience; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time; War Horse; Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s original one-woman Fleabag; or Australian-born theatre sensation Prima Facie – then you’re a key the reason that NT Live has been going strong in Australia for 17 years.
NT Live in Australia – quick links
From the National Theatre stage to Australian cinemas
NT Live launched in the UK and Australia in 2009, with Mirren performing in Phèdre. Sharmill Founder, Executive Director and Chair Natalie Miller says it ‘was an immediate success, which we were very thrilled about’.
Success wasn’t a given. ‘There was a bit of scepticism initially about how live theatre would play on the screen, but it immediately opened up all over the world,’ Miller continues. ‘And we’ve really never looked back.’
For 17 years now, Sharmill, Australia’s longest-running arthouse distributor, has helped share the best of Britain’s theatre scene with Australian viewers. The company’s involvement arose out of its ties with The Metropolitan Opera Live, which it had already started to bring to Australia. ‘We were dealing with the same people in New York, actually, which made it much easier,’ the industry veteran explains.
Miller credits her business partner at beloved Melbourne institution Cinema Nova, Barry Peak, with ‘stumbling across the Met Opera going live’ and starting Sharmill down this path. ‘He said “let’s try it at the Nova,” which we did, and I took over to look after it as a distributor,’ Miller says.
The advent of digital technology in cinema exhibition was also critical. ‘The technology became a game-changer,’ Miller says of rolling out NT Live to an average of 50 cinemas nationwide per title – sometimes as high as 80 or 90, depending on the production.
Initially, Thornton says, ‘It was who was digitally equipped to do it, because not all the cinemas could actually physically do it.’
Miller adds, ‘It didn’t take long for them all to jump on the bandwagon.’
Thornton says The Audience in 2013 ‘was the first one where we were over a million dollars’. ‘[It] was performing above a lot of the crossover titles at the time. It really was incredible to see it do that box office. And then from that point on, we’ve been able to reach the million dollar mark a few times on NT Live, which is amazing.’
Courting stage obsessives and new audiences alike
The next NT Live title arriving in Australia – the Sandra Oh-led version of The Misanthrope on 1 October – has a date with 55 cinemas around the country: 24 in New South Wales, 13 in Victoria, six in Queensland, five in South Australia, four in Western Australia, two in Canberra and one in Tasmania.
Come 19 November, when Josh O’Connor’s turn in the revival of Golden Boy graces the screen, it will feature in more than 40 venues nationwide. Both runs span city and regional locations.
Likely to head along to each is the typical NT Live crowd, which is always ‘a mixed demographic,’ says Miller, but ‘probably a bit older’. Adds Thornton, ‘Traditionally, it’s that core theatre audience that, as Natalie says, is 40s, 55-plus, slightly female-skewing.’
Some attendees are stage diehards, complementing their local theatre outings. Others are seasoned aficionados of NT Live as a format, and appreciative of not needing to make an overseas trip to enjoy National Theatre’s shows.
Many patrons come on a title-by-title basis. ‘There’s this theatre crowd, but then there’s also this crowd that just see it as something in the cinema, a film,’ says Thornton. ‘They don’t differentiate it as actually even being theatre. And the theatre isn’t the selling point – it’s the production, the cast.’
Enticing younger and new audiences is every artform’s goal – ideally converting the unacquainted into a fresh cohort of lifelong fans. ‘Something like Fleabag attracted a lot of young people,’ Miller notes. ‘Prima Facie, 50% of that audience were new, never seen NT Live, and were definitely younger,’ Thornton says.
Thornton adds, ‘It can break out, like our recent The Importance of Being Earnest [which] definitely skewed younger too because it was a funky new take, or Vanya with Andrew Scott.’
The same audience trends are observed at Sydney’s Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace, where General Manager Alex Temesvari says, ‘It used to be a slightly older crowd, maybe 50s and upwards, but with some of the recent productions – Prima Facie, Fleabag and Inter Alia – the crowd has become noticeably younger and seems to be grabbing more in their 30s [and] 40s, and even 20s on occasion.’
To his mind, aiding that shift is the fact that ‘the National Theatre seems to have their finger on the pulse in making a conscious attempt to appeal to younger audiences by choosing the both the right material and actors for their productions.’
Big names and Aussie sensations
Thanks to Grey’s Anatomy and Killing Eve alum Oh, plus The Crown, Challengers and Disclosure Day’s O’Connor, The Misanthrope and Golden Boy each boast one of NT Live’s biggest drawcards: a well-known actor anchoring the production.
Recognisable names undoubtedly assist in selling tickets to individual titles. ‘It makes a huge difference,’ Temesvari says. ‘If there’s a big star attached and the reviews from overseas are great, it really helps.’
Sydney’s Hayden Orpheum isn’t just one of the many Australian and international venues playing NT Live titles. For the smash-hit West End stage version of Prima Facie with Jodie Comer – which won her an Olivier Award and, when it transferred to Broadway, a Tony as well – it’s the highest-grossing cinema worldwide.
‘We’ve always been one of the strongest sites nationally for NT Live but this still exceeded all expectations,’ says Temesvari. ‘While we always hope something of this calibre will connect strongly with our audience, for it perform like a blockbuster film was both surprising and welcome.’
Temesvari also thinks that an Australian connection can be ‘quite meaningful’ for an NT Live season to strike a chord at Hayden Orpheum, ‘but more important is that it’s an extremely well-regarded and awarded piece of work, and Suzie Miller’s name is also a big draw in this case. Our audience trusts her and rightfully so.’
Another case in point: the also-enthusiastic reaction to Suzie Miller’s latest London-premiering play Inter Alia, an Olivier Award-winner for Rosamund Pike, which screened here in 2025 via NT Live ahead of the production’s jump to Broadway at the end of 2026.
An Australian cinema faring so well with the format tracks with NT Live’s overall impact too. ‘Australia is the second-best performing territory in the world,’ says Thornton. ‘We actually outperform the US consistently.’
More than just star power
Iconic productions, famous actors, award-winners and acclaimed playwrights have all been influential in NT Live’s Australian journey. With the National Theatre’s 2027 season featuring the likes of Death of a Salesman with Paul Mescal and Tracy Letts, plus Suddenly Last Summer with Emma Corrin and Harriet Walter, expect that to continue – not that Sharmill is yet able to confirm which works from next year’s slate will make the leap to NT Live.
In not only succeeding but enduring, though, Thornton calls the ‘performance factor’ one of the most crucial elements of the initiative’s ongoing appeal. ‘That you’re seeing the most-exquisite trained actors in the world, in a way that their craft is at the peak of their game. They’re doing it every night. And then, in the formats where they’re onstage almost for the whole time, it’s just a marvel,’ she says. ‘It’s one of the greatest marvels that is in modern art – to see an actor of that calibre giving you their everything.’
One specific title that Thornton names is 2014’s revival of Skylight, starring Bill Nighy and Carey Mulligan, which ‘is just some of the most intimate stuff of performance you’ll ever see,’ she says.
She adds, ‘We’re really lucky that the National Theatre stage attracts the best actors in the world.’
Miller calls a ticket to a NT Live session ‘the best seat in the house’ to ‘the best theatre in the world’ – and stresses that point more than once – highlighting the fact that cinema patrons are often treated to a better vantage than London theatregoers.
Seeing the Gillian Anderson-starring A Streetcar Named Desire via NT Live, for example, means watching the X-Files icon’s in-the-round performance up close, in such intimate, unflinching detail, that not a moment or an emotion escapes the viewer’s notice, and the same is true for co-stars Vanessa Kirby and Ben Foster as well.
‘With something like Jodie Comer or with Inter Alia, yes, it’s the idea of getting to see something that’s really special in the UK, but also watching those actors in that format do that for two hours – there’s nothing like it,’ says Thornton.
Unforgettable performances and the impact of word of mouth
Audiences remember show-stopping portrayals, such as Anderson’s as Blanche DuBois, Comer’s in Prima Facie and Pike’s in Inter Alia. More than that, they tell people about it. When one of the format’s titles wows Aussies, then, ‘word of mouth is the biggest thing,’ says Miller, including when a production earns an encore season.
‘Some of our biggest ones, like Fleabag for instance, or Prima Facie, you get a base audience that want to come. But if it’s really an excellent play, they tell their friends and then it just spreads.’
Not every NT Live title screening in Australia packs out cinemas, ‘but we’ve had some enormous successes,’ Miller says, ‘and that’s [driven by] word of mouth after people initially seeing it.’
Thornton hopes seeing a NT Live smash also encourages viewers to see more Australian theatre. ‘I took every single one of my girlfriends to see Inter Alia, and there’s no way that they don’t want to see another Suzie Miller now,’ she says.
‘Seeing the best theatre in the world, experiencing it, can’t help but make you fall in love with theatre.’
At Hayden Orpheum, Temesvari is optimistic that Prima Facie’s exceptional NT Live run and the eager response to Suzie Miller’s work in general will bring audiences to the movie adaptation early next year. ‘It bodes very well for the feature film version starring Cynthia Erivo releasing here in January.’
Ultimately, both Thornton and Miller believe the longevity of the NT Live format comes down to access to extraordinary works and performances. That viewers won’t spend much more than the price of a regular cinema ticket, and certainly far less than seeing a stage production live in an Australian theatre, adds to the appeal as well.
‘It’s almost like not till you’ve seen one do you understand how accessible it is,’ says Thorton.
‘And every different play has a different subject matter, and you bring in a new audience … and then hopefully wants to see more NT Live.’
