The Australian Ballet’s Benedicte Bemet and François-Eloi Lavignac. Photography Kate Longley. Launched in 2009, National Theatre Live was a bold experiment that beamed the company’s production of Phèdre, starring Helen Mirren, to 70 cinemas across the UK and a further five cinemas in Europe. While concerns were raised that a filmed production could never capture the magic of live theatre, the experiment was an immediate success, according to economist David Throsby, who helped evaluate the results.
‘The findings of the research were that first of all, the audience for the entire season – not just the night but the entire season – for that play more than doubled in one night,’ Throsby told the recent National Dance Forum held at the VCA.
