The National Theatre General Thread

That was pretty much the proposal in a Yes Prime Minister episode.

Sell off the South Bank and make the National Theatre truly National by making them tour!

No buildings to manage. And taking theatre to all parts of the country.

The arts establishment hated it as it would in real life!

The foyer point is a really good one - I was actually thinking that the last time I was there. It doesn’t have much of a buzz at all these days of itself ( more alive when it’s a production with buzz of course). I was actually trying to think why and what’s changed. I was noticing there is quite a lot of dead space there now - not even particular well laid out from a practical perspective.

It’s such a fab and iconic space though - by contrast I was at the Barbican the other day and although not perfect it definitely had more about it ( as an aside did the architecture tour there which I’d thoroughly recommend). The aforementioned Bridge is obviously heaps of fun atm the with Guys and Dolls ( admittedly smaller space and obviously an ideal show to play on).

But the National could do so much more ( although I guess funds are a restriction). For example with the current Dear England where hopefully you might be getting a slightly different audience they could have done so much playing on the football theme and bringing people into the space even if not the play. I’m a big believer in making people comfortable in theatres leading to them trying a play.

The Barbican is similar in terms of dead public space, probably has a lot more. I guess we only experience it for 20-30 minutes per visit and, based on that vibrant throng, wonder why isn't there much more for us to do. Rest of the time, seems to only appeals to those looking for a toilet, shelter or free wifi. Barbican certainly attracts those types, too. Brutal by design, brutal by experience.

Re Rufus Norris and repertoire, in his generous summing up of the Norris era, Michael Billington recalls an early interview with him in which he challenged Norris on the lack of classic plays. Norris replied that he wanted to achieve gender parity and you can't do that by programmming plays from the male-dominated classical past. Whilst I can understand the desire for gender parity in new writing, it seems absurd and wrong to deny historical reality and the NT's duty to keep the great plays of the past alive. In 35 years of theatre-going with lots of women, I've never met one who turned down a suggestion of Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ibsen or Sophocles on the grounds that they were written by a man. Does anyone outside academe and the arts really think like that? And of course the male-dominated past would presumably mean the era before Norris became AD.

Jan, I'm afraid I can't agree with you there!  I think the Eyre decade was the best I've experienced.  In terms of productions of classic plays, including Shakespeare (the odd failure aside), giving new directors a chance and new writing, it was a golden age.  I'm a Trevor Nunn fan but with the exception of that truly fabulous year when he did six plays in rep (Merchant of Venice, Troilus and Cressida, Summerfolk etc),  his was a relatively lacklustre era.  What do you have against Richard Eyre, out of interest?

Yes, it's been very welcome. I remember having lengthy arguments on this site where posters kept telling me how very unlikely an at home streaming NT Live scenario would be, but then along came Covid and here we are! Friends and family with limited mobility and/or income have been able to see plays they would not otherwise be able to access physically at all, and living in the NW of England and with soaringly expensive and very unreliable transport to London it's been a godsend. We've watched and discussed plays together on 3 continents for our international book group. It's no doubt introducing a new generation to plays through the chance to see TV and movie star actors in earlier roles, and hopefully will encourage these youngsters to make real theatre visits in the wake of that.

Ha ha, don’t get me started on the Barbican. They couldn’t even make the floor level there. Absurd theatre space. Been discussed many times here. 

When it comes to RuNo, his production of Small Island is one of his big successes as he directed it while Hex was a dud (but does anyone still remember the disaster that was Manor in 2021? Though that’s by the Buffinis but it was staged under RuNo’s tenure as AD). NT Live and NT at Home remain successes.

Reading from the recent comments regarding the use of Dorfman theatre for new plays and not revivals/classics during RuNo’s tenure, I already see Nimax’s @sohoplace becoming the viable venue replacement for Dorfman, and also the Almeida and Donmar. I cannot help but think that @sohoplace’s two recent stagings of classic works, As You Like It & Medea, could have been at the NT but the opportunity to do a show at a shiny brand new theatre with great seats is too good to resist. Nica Burns mentioned that the prices are more affordable than the National’s Olivier theatre (their highest charge was £95 for Medea). Although it’s too early to tell right now what would @sohoplace’s known reputation (so far they’ve staged four productions, the fifth one being a musical this autumn).

Some positives: this was great being set up

www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/learn-explore/schools/national-theatre-collection/

over the next 12 months, 19 out of the NT’s 21 productions will be by living writers and 60% of the directors at the NT over the past eight years have made their debut

I agree.  It's absurd. 

Going back to Richard Eyre, just trying to defend his tenure.  Some great productions of Shakespeare - his Richard III with Mckellen and Warner's Lear with Cox, Ian Holm as Lear too, the Mendes/SRB/Harewood Othello, Fiona Shaw's Richard II; Volpone with Gambon and SRB, Borkman with Scofield/Redgrave/Atkins, Fuente Ovejuna, the best Brecht I've ever seen -  the McBurney Caucasian Chalk Circle, The Way of the World, An Inspector Calls, Rodney Ackland's Absolute Hell, Machinal, The Voysey Inheritance.  Superb Sondheim and other musicals - Sunday in the Park, Sweeney, Little Night Music, Carousel, Guys and Dolls.  Amazing new writing:  Racing Demon and Skylight (Hare, sorry), Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Bennett's Single Spies and Madness of George III, Arcadia, Dancing at Lughnasa, Dealer's Choice and Closer, The Cripple of Inishmaan, Broken Glass, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, Angels in America.  Plus giving lots of superb directors a chance to shine on a bigger stage:  McBurney/Complicité, Katie Mitchell, Declan Donellan, Stephen Daldry, Deborah Warner, Phyllida Lloyd, Sean Mathias, plus lots of stuff for more established names like Howard Davies and Nick Hytner.  Lots of other things too, of course, but my memory of the decade was hit after hit - though of course these things also relate to one's own time of life - I started going to the theatre in London in 1988, the end of the Hall era, so most of that first decade when one is seeing a lot and very excited about everything coincided with Eyre at the National, Kent/McDiarmid at the Almeida and Mendes at the Donmar.  A superb decade.

No need to, I was fine with Eyre and he produced and directed some great shows (and some clunkers like Bartholomew Fair and White Chameleon) but I just thought overall he wasn't as good an AD as Hall, Hytner or Nunn. On reflection I think he was better than Norris though. 

I think Norris has done a decent job in difficult circumstances. It's a very changed landscape, with obvious pressures like Covid and austerity plus social media cancel culture and pile-ons meaning that constant looking over your shoulder with both new and old work that is impacting the arts these days, and operating at a time of 'peak TV' which is taking some great established and upcoming actors away from theatre. Fwiw I am glad we are hearing more diverse voices, and I don't come away from plays at the NT that deal with difficult complex topics feeling I've been hectored and lectured for 2 hours rather than seeing a well constructed and entertaining play, in the way I do from some other London theatres.