A bit of Noel Coward, live on a movie screen: Sunday

Though they have traits in common, live theater and movies offer obviously different artistic experiences. But those differences merge into one when live theater is presented on a movie screen.

Which is what happens during those National Theatre Live productions that come on occasion to this part of the Inland Northwest. Example? The National Theatre Live production of Noel Coward's play "Present Laughter," which will be screened at The Bing Crosby Theater at 2 p.m. on Sunday.

Presented live from London's The Old Vic, a theater that has been operating in one guise or another since 1818, "Present Laughter" stars Andrew Scott as a troubled actor about to embark on a national tour.

Scott is "storming one of the West End’s biggest stages in Noel Coward’s 1942 comedy about an overwrought and over-sexed thespian," wrote critic Patrick Marmion in the London Daily Mail. "And the brown-eyed Irishman gives a positively cyclonic performance."

Scott "plays Garry Essendine, a spoilt, petulant actor who gluts himself on the sex and intimacy his fans offer, then sits soggily in the mess he’s created," wrote Time Out London critic Alice Saville. "And he’s frighteningly good at it. Coward’s comedy lets Scott show off both his endless proficiency for delivering a well-timed quip, and his physical virtuosity."

Think about it: Live theater on a movie screen. What a mind meld.

Click here for Bing ticket information.