RSC 2018

The Doran Henry VI plays lying like an inert indigestible lump at the heart of the season ?

Always thought he would do the H6/R3 tetralogy in a winter season much like Boyd did in i think 2000-01. Unless there is some amazing casting it would be a brave ask for a summer season.😉

The problem with that Winter cycle approach is that it would waste Richard III, bunging it on in deepest winter for a short limited run. It would make much better box office sense for Richard III to be one of the main plays in a Summer season with many performances. Gregory Doran's productions in this longrunning Compleat Workes boreathon are deliberately striaghtforward and there wouldn't be much dramatic benefit to presenting Richard III as the fag end of a series of Henry VI plays.

Significant we are discussing what Doran himself will want to direct, he's turned it into a one-man company. I think he hasn't directed Troilus or R&J, Henry VI, RIII, AYLI, Pericles, Measure for Measure, some others too. He hadn't directed Cymbeline or Merchant or 2 Gents either but let others direct those.

Personally, my RSC-going is now much more limited because the programme is now so compartmentalised with completely separate acting companies for the RST, the Swan and TOP. And with Gregory Doran leading the RST and Erica Whyman the Swan and TOP, and without a team of permanent Associate Directors, there's virtually no director crossover between theatres (with the occasional exception such as Blanche McIntyre this year in the Swan and the RST). In the good old days, actors would act in all three theatres and directors would direct in all five (the three Stratford and two London) and so many audience members would be much more readily drawn to see a wider range of the RSC's work.

The RSC tried to address this separation with their Roman season this summer in both the RSC and the Swan, but the only connexion between the two theatres' programmes was this broad theme, and it didn't encourage me to see plays across both theatres, whereas an acting and creative company working across both theatres in one season might have led me to see a wider range of productions. (I say a "wider range" - I haven't actually seen or planned to see a single one of them).

Everyone leaves. Someway. I am sure he will want to leave before he gets pushed - as everyone will/would be anyway.

Yes, few now remember that Shakespeare invented Sudoku.

I don't think it would make much sense to leave before the end of the Compleat Workes, at the very earliest.

It would be good to have a second period after that, with a fresh programming policy - either a Festival year of some form or some other operational change.

Leaving straight after the last of the Compleat Workes would make the whole project seem to have been a long, plodding hiatus in the history of an interesting theatre company.

Greg does turn 60 in November 2018 and Sir Antony will be 70 in June 2019 so I had thought that end of 2018-19 Winter or Summer Season might be when he decides to go. But with him wanting to complete the CW then that will likely take longer and they may want a hand over period so 2021/22/23 could be more realistic.

Also I wonder with Greg and Antony's long association with the RSC whether Greg could eventually move into the Advisory Director's role which John Barton and Cicely Berry hold. Both these two are elderly now so I don't know how much they actively contribute to these roles although I have seen Cicely at a lot of opening nights. Having Greg in a more full on "Advisory" role could mean that the RSC could go for a younger more adventurous choice as Greg's replacement.

Antony has played Falstaff before in other RSC plays so it would be logical for him to take the role again. It has been a fair while since they last did it given it is a fun play.

His mentor John Barton never left, he's still there (I saw him in the audience at the Nunn War of the Roses production in Kingston actually, very frail).

If I was a younger more adventurous choice I wouldn't want Doran hanging around advising me. At present I really have no
clue who could take over from him, or more importantly who would want to - certainly no one young and adventurous springs to mind.

We have commented on it before but it is quite surprising how the ultimate company man like Doran has proceeded to completely abandon the idea of the RSC being a company (a group of actors and directors who commit to the RSC on a long-term basis).