While a lot of groups and individuals have put work online since the theatres closed, some long-established paid services already exist where you can see productions from the Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal Opera House, Shakespeare's Globe and more.
Launched in 2018, Marquee TV has a large catalogue of contemporary and classic dance, opera, music and theatre as well as documentaries including the Donmar Warehouse's Shakespeare Trilogy with Harriet Walter, The 3 Tenors and productions from Glyndebourne, Opera Zurich, Shakespeare's Globe, Belarus Free Theatre, Norwegian National Ballet, Bolshoi, Paris Opera, New York City Ballet and more.
From 20 March 2020, Marquee TV is offering a 30-day free trial of its subscription service (usually £8.99 per month or £89.99 per year) and has collaborated with the RSC and Royal Opera House on a new initiative, Every Night is Opening Night, with an enhanced programme of productions, including weekly premières on Saturday evenings, as part of a ‘virtual season’.
These premières will include La Traviata and Cavalleria Rusticana / Pagliacci from The Royal Opera, Swan Lake from The Royal Ballet, Giselle from English National Ballet and the RSC's Twelfth Night.
Gregory Doran, Artistic Director, Royal Shakespeare Company, said of the initiative, “nothing can replace the experience of seeing a play live on stage. But with our theatres currently closed and all of us spending much more time at home, we are pleased to be part of this initiative. This will give people from around the world the chance to see 18 of our recent productions for free at this time.”
Digital Theatre launched in 2009 and Digital Theatre+—which offers productions, further filmed content (interviews and documentaries) and supporting resources for secondary, K12, FE and HE institutions—followed in 2010. It offers 123 productions (298 on Digital Theatre+) currently for a monthly subscription of £9.99, or individual productions can be rented for 48 hours for £7.99.
Productions are filmed with a live audience with close collaboration between Digital Theatre and the production team. The most popular productions listed on the homepage are currently the RSC's Hamlet with Paapa Essiedu, Lovesong at Lyric Hammersmith, Richard Armitage in The Crucible at The Old Vic, Antony Sher in the RSC's King Lear and Maxine Peake in Hamlet at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester.
You can also see Much Ado About Nothing starring Catherine Tate and David Tennant, Opera North's 2012 Don Giovanni, Sheridan Smith and Darius Campbell in Funny Girl, Simon Russell Beale in The Tempest and Zoë Wanamaker and David Suchet in Arthur Miller's All My Sons.
Globe Player provides a pretty basic web site dedicated to delivering filmed productions from Shakespeare's Globe. These include a lot of Shakespeare plays, obviously, but also a small amount of new writing and some music from the plays and documentary footage. There is no subscription service; individual productions can be purchased for download for £11.99 or can be rented for seven days for £5.99.
Globe Player, Digital Theatre and Marquee TV are only licensed for private viewing, but Digital Theatre+ is licensed for use in educational establishments and much of the content of Globe Player is also available on the educational site Drama Online, which also contains the National Theatre Collection, the Donmar Shakespeare Trilogy, the RSC Live Collection and a lot more. If you are a teacher or student, you may find your institution already has a subscription with one or both of these services so you can access them for free.