Academy Award® nominee Benedict Cumberbatch (BBC’s Sherlock, The Imitation Game) takes on the title role of Shakespeare’s great tragedy.

Now seen by over 750,000 people worldwide, the original 2015 NT Live broadcast returns to cinemas.

As a country arms itself for war, a family tears itself apart. Forced to avenge his father’s death but paralysed by the task ahead, Hamlet rages against the impossibility of his predicament, threatening both his sanity and the security of the state. Directed by Lyndsey Turner (Posh, Chimerica) and produced by Sonia Friedman Productions.

Stephen Sondheim’s legendary musical is staged for the first time at the National Theatre and broadcast live to cinemas.

New York, 1971. There’s a party on the stage of the Weismann Theatre. Tomorrow the iconic building will be demolished. Thirty years after their final performance, the Follies girls gather to have a few drinks, sing a few songs and lie about themselves.

Tracie Bennett, Janie Dee and Imelda Staunton play the magnificent Follies in this dazzling new production. Featuring a cast of 37 and an orchestra of 21, it’s directed by Dominic Cooke (The Comedy of Errors). Winner of Academy, Tony, Grammy and Olivier awards, Sondheim’s previous work includes A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd and Sunday in the Park with George.

The Whitstable Playhouse is pleased to announce that the Rat Pack will be back in the theatre on Friday 3rd November 2017.

This superb show takes you back to the famous ‘Sands Hotel’ in Las Vegas in the 1960’s when Frank, Dean and Sammy were at their very best.

The cast features Neil Gordon as Frank Sinatra, Darren Charles as Sammy Davis Jr. (as seen in the West End Rat Pack Show) and Whitstable’s own Neil Duncan as Dean Martin. The Rat Pack will be supported by the fabulous ‘Black Tie Swing’ featuring some of the finest musicians in the UK today.

Get your tickets to a night of swinging music, great memories and plenty of mischief from these unforgettable legends.

All seats are £17.00 available from the box office or on line.

Rory Kinnear (The Threepenny Opera, Penny Dreadful, Othello) is Marx and Oliver Chris (Twelfth Night, Green Wing) is Engels, in this new comedy written by Richard Bean and Clive Coleman. Broadcast live from The Bridge Theatre, London, the production is directed by Nicholas Hytner and reunites the creative team behind Broadway and West End hit comedy One Man, Two Guvnors.

1850, and Europe’s most feared terrorist is hiding in Dean Street, Soho. Broke, restless and horny, the thirty-two-year-old revolutionary is a frothing combination of intellectual brilliance, invective, satiric wit, and child-like emotional illiteracy.

Creditors, spies, rival revolutionary factions and prospective seducers of his beautiful wife all circle like vultures. His writing blocked, his marriage dying, his friend Engels in despair at his wasted genius, his only hope is a job on the railway. But there’s still no one in the capital who can show you a better night on the piss than Karl Heinrich Marx.

Here comes Johnny singing oldies Goldies. Dire Straits UK brings you the biggest hits of one of the greatest British Rock Bands of the 20th Century.

Hear iconic hits such as Money for Nothing, Walk of Life, Romeo and Juliet and Sultans of Swing performed by 6 super fan musicians with unparalleled attention to detail, love and affection. You’ll truly get a shiver in the dark…

On a steamy night in Mississippi, a Southern family gather at their cotton plantation to celebrate Big Daddy’s birthday. The scorching heat is almost as oppressive as the lies they tell. Brick and Maggie dance round the secrets and sexual tensions that threaten to destroy their marriage. With the future of the family at stake, which version of the truth is real – and which will win out?

Sienna Miller stars as Maggie alongside Jack O’Connell as Brick and Colm Meaney as Big Daddy. A return to the stage for director Benedict Andrews following his smash hit production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Tennessee Williams’ searing, poetic story of a family’s fight for survival is a twentieth century masterpiece.

Ben Whishaw (The Danish Girl, Skyfall, Hamlet) and Michelle Fairley (Fortitude, Game of Thrones) play Brutus and Cassius, David Calder (The Lost City of Z, The Hatton Garden Job) plays Caesar and David Morrissey (The Missing, Hangmen, The Walking Dead) is Mark Antony. Broadcast live from The Bridge Theatre, London.

Caesar returns in triumph to Rome and the people pour out of their homes to celebrate. Alarmed by the autocrat’s popularity, the educated élite conspire to bring him down. After his assassination, civil war erupts on the streets of the capital.

Nicholas Hytner’s production will thrust the audience into the street party that greets Caesar’s return, the congress that witnesses his murder, the rally that assembles for his funeral and the chaos that explodes in its wake.

We can see the fire’s still alight….Genesis Legacy is a loving tribute to the music of Genesis, Mike and the Mechanics, Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett and, of course, Phil Collins.

Hear the biggest hits from these pillars of the British music industry such as Invisible Touch, Over my Shoulder, Solisbury Hill, In the Air tonight and many many more. They’ll be reaching in to grab right hold of your heart!

For music fans everywhere, the Carpenters music was the soundtrack to the ‘70s. Hauntingly beautiful songs like Close to You and We’ve Only Just Begun made Richard and Karen Carpenter international superstars.

Kent-based soprano Rebecca Robinson and pianist Mark Heller are touring a captivating show charting the meteoric rise to fame of the brother and sister duo, and they will be appearing at the Playhouse, Whitstable on Friday 20 April, at 7.45pm.

Featuring many classic and much-loved Carpenters songs, Yesterday Once More charts Karen’s extraordinary musical achievements, reveals the turbulent lives that lay behind the glamour and success, and tells the story of her long and unsuccessful battle with anorexia.

This memorable and moving show pays tribute to Karen Carpenter through song, story and video footage. Intimate piano and vocal arrangements showcase The Carpenters’ songs in all their poignant beauty.

Tickets are priced at £12 (£14 on the door), and are available by calling the theatre’s box office on 01227 272042 or by going online at www.playhousewhitstable.co.uk.