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Drawing by Alison Chitty of a playreading at the NT Studio
A short history of the
National Theatre
1848 – 2013
1909 • Mrs Lyttelton obtains the first substantial donation to the
appeal: £70,000 from Carl Meyer, son of a Hamburg banker.
1848 • The first proposal for a National Theatre is made by
Effingham Wilson, a London publisher. It is supported by leading
figures of the day, including Charles Dickens, critic and poet Matthew
Arnold, and actors Charles Kemble and Sir Henry Irving.
1913 – 42 • Various sites are considered, acquired and rejected,
architects appointed and plans submitted.
1903 • Actor-director-author Harley Granville Barker and critic
William Archer publish the first detailed plans for a National Theatre,
and circulate their book privately. The estimated total cost of the
project is £300,000.
1930 • In a revised edition of his book on the National Theatre,
Granville Barker writes prophetically: “The site facing the river,
between County Hall and the Surrey Approach to the new Charing
Cross Bridge, is about all that one can wish for; a National Theatre
could hardly be better placed.”
1908 • Supporters of the campaign join forces with a group
planning a memorial to Shakespeare, to form the Shakespeare
Memorial National Theatre. The Committee includes Bernard Shaw,
Arthur Wing Pinero, Beerbohm Tree, Johnston Forbes-Robertson,
and Granville Barker; plus leading social and political figures like
Viscount Esher and the Hon Mrs Alfred Lyttelton.
The Objects of the Shakespeare National Theatre are published
under the following headings:
1. To keep the plays of Shakespeare in its repertory
2. To revive whatever else is vital in English classical drama
3. To prevent recent plays of great merit from falling into oblivion
4. To produce new plays and to further the development of the
modern drama
5. To produce translations of representative works of foreign drama,
ancient and modern
6. To stimulate the art of acting through the varied opportunities
which it will offer to the members of the company.
1937 • A site is purchased opposite the Victoria and Albert
Museum. Sir Edwin Lutyens and Cecil Masey are appointed to
design the building. A building committee begins to meet.
Lilian Baylis dies. Her work, as the legendary manager of the Old Vic
for 25 years, had laid the foundations for a national theatre.
1939 • The Second World War delays the building of the theatre.
1940 • The Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts
is set up with direct grants from the Exchequer to fund the arts. In
1946 it is to become the Arts Council of Great Britain.
1942 • The London County Council agrees to exchange the
Kensington site for a new one on the South Bank of the Thames.
Harley Granville Barker
1
Shakespeare’s Othello.
A ticket in the stalls for the first
season costs 27s 6d (£1.28) and
in the gallery 3s (15p). The Arts
Council grant for the first season
is £130,000. Despite “House
Full” signs every night, the first
season ends with a deficit of
£22,500.
Denys Lasdun is chosen as
architect of the new theatre
and opera house on the South
Bank. For two years he explores
the challenges with a building
committee.
1964 • The Royal Hunt of the
Sun by Peter Shaffer is the NT’s
first world premiere.
1965 • The National Theatre Company visits Russia and East
Germany with Othello, Hobson’s Choice and Love for Love.
1966 • The National at the Old Vic goes £250,000 into the red. Arts
Minister Jennie Lee announces an increase in government subsidy
to cover the deficit. Jacques Charon, from the Comédie Française,
directs an acclaimed production of Feydeau’s A Flea In Her Ear
adapted by John Mortimer.
1967 • The site for the new theatre is shifted a few hundred yards
east – its last move. The capital cost is now estimated at £7.5million.
The National stages As You Like It with an all-male cast, and its first
new play by an untried author: Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern Are Dead.
1949 • The National Theatre Bill is brought before Parliament, and
passed without division, empowering the government of the day to
contribute up to £1 million for the theatre’s building and equipment.
1969 • Work starts on the building; it is expected to be completed
by 1973.
1951 • In Festival of Britain year, a foundation stone is laid by HM
The Queen (later Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother) on a site next
to the Festival Hall.
1970 • Money from recent surpluses is used to finance the Young
Vic, a hundred yards down The Cut from the Old Vic. The Young
Vic serves the NT as a studio theatre until 1973 when it becomes
a separate company. Olivier receives a life peerage, the first ever
offered to an actor.
1952 • The LCC offer a better site, adjoining County Hall.
1962 • The Chancellor appoints the National Theatre Board,
chaired by Lord Chandos (the former Oliver Lyttelton), and the South
Bank Theatre and Opera House Board, chaired by Lord Cottesloe, to
supervise the building operation.
The appointment is announced of the National’s first Director,
Laurence Olivier, then launching the first season at Chichester
Festival Theatre of which he is Director. The Governors of the Old
Vic agree to offer their theatre as a temporary home for the National
Theatre.
1971 • The National is brought to a low point with a series of
unpopular productions at the Old Vic, and a season staged at the
New Theatre (now the Noël Coward), unsuccessful apart from Long
Day’s Journey Into Night, with Olivier as James Tyrone.
Sir Max Rayne (later to be Lord Rayne) succeeds Lord Chandos as
Chairman of the NT Board.
1972 • The National’s fortunes revive with Jonathan Miller’s
production of The School for Scandal and Michael Blakemore’s of
The Front Page.
1963 • 22 October: The National’s inaugural production opens
– Shakespeare’s Hamlet, directed by Laurence Olivier, with Peter
O’Toole in the lead. The repertoire for the first season also consists
of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya and Shaw’s Saint Joan, which had
opened at Chichester, Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer, Ibsen’s
The Master Builder, Harold Brighouse’s Hobson’s Choice, Beckett’s
Play with Sophocles’ Philoctetes, Max Frisch’s Andorra, and
1973 • Olivier gives his last stage performance – in Trevor Griffiths’
The Party.
Peter Hall, founder and former director of the Royal Shakespeare
Company, succeeds him as Director of the NT.
Left: Laurence Olivier. Photo by Zoë Dominic
Right: Laurence Olivier at the Royal Opening, 1976. Photo by Nobby Clark
2
1974 • The opening of the new building is delayed further by
construction difficulties; but the National Theatre Bill 1974 removes
the limit on government support for the building work.
speech of welcome in the auditorium named after him, makes his
only appearance on one of the new NT’s stages.
1977 • The first of the plays commissioned for the new building to
have its premiere there is Howard Brenton’s Weapons of Happiness,
in the Lyttelton. Others are Robert Bolt’s State of Revolution and
Alan Ayckbourn’s Bedroom Farce, which later transfers to West End.
4 March: The Cottesloe finally opens with a visiting production from
the Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool, Ken Campbell’s eight-hour
epic Illuminatus! Bill Bryden’s promenade production of medieval
Mystery plays, The Passion, in a version by Tony Harrison is one of
the first plays to open in the Cottesloe. Eventually, with the addition
of The Nativity and Doomsday this becomes The Mysteries, staged
several times until 1999, sometimes with all-day performances.
The theatre is closed for five nights by an unofficial strike over the
dismissal of a plumber. The deficit on the first year’s operation is
£250,000, caused by the late opening of the Olivier and the high
costs of servicing the building. Much of the machinery, including the
Olivier’s drum-revolve, still does not work.
1975 • Peter Hall takes the decision to move into the new building
as soon as one auditorium is ready. NT staff leave the huts in
Aquinas Street which have served as their “temporary” offices
throughout the company’s years at the Old Vic, and move into the
still unfinished building to prepare to open it theatre-by-theatre.
Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land, one of several new plays written
for the opening of the National, opens at the Old Vic with Ralph
Richardson and John Gielgud, directed by Peter Hall.
1976 • The first productions in the Lyttelton Theatre (named after
Oliver Lyttelton, Lord Chandos), are transfers from the Old Vic, and
on 8 March a week of previews of five plays begins with Beckett’s
Happy Days. Peggy Ashcroft plays Winnie.
16 March: The Lyttelton Theatre officially opens with Albert Finney as
Hamlet, directed by Peter Hall.
The work at first known as “NT Extras” starts, under Associate
Director Michael Kustow. The first Platform performance is staged –
Scenes from National Life. It begins a programme of short, earlyevening events – plays, talks, readings, discussions in each of the
three theatres – which has continued to the present day.
Foyer music begins – free live concerts ranging from baroque and
jazz to folk, given by professional groups each day in the foyer before
performances. The first free exhibitions go on view in the foyers,
which are described by Denys Lasdun as “the fourth auditorium …
all the public areas, foyers and terraces are in themselves a theatre
with the city as a backdrop”.
The opening of the Olivier Theatre, due in July, is put back further
by contractors’ delays and industrial troubles within the theatre.
It eventually opens on 4 October with Marlowe’s Tamburlaine The
Great, directed by Peter Hall with Albert Finney in the lead. The
company had been in rehearsal since April, and had resorted to
performing sections of the play outside on the terraces.
25 October: The Queen officially opens the National Theatre,
although the building is still unfinished. Laurence Olivier, giving a
1978 – 79 • Further industrial action over the next two years
causes cancelled performances and huge costs.
An Arts Council inquiry into the costs of running the National
recommends a once-for-all grant to clear the accumulated deficit.
1979 • Warren Mitchell wins three best actor awards as Willy
Loman in Michael Rudman’s production of Arthur Miller’s Death
of a Salesman. Peter Shaffer’s new play, Amadeus, directed by
Peter Hall, wins 13 awards, and later transfers to the West End and
Broadway.
1980 • Brecht’s The Life of Galileo, with Michael Gambon in
the title part, directed by John Dexter in the Olivier, is the biggest
popular success a Brecht play has had in London.
The premiere of Howard Brenton’s The Romans in Britain, which
includes a scene depicting attempted homosexual rape, causes
an uproar. The director, Michael Bogdanov is prosecuted by Mary
Whitehouse (the case is finally dropped in 1982).
The National celebrates Olivier’s 80th Birthday: Max Rayne, Laurence Olivier,
Peter Hall and Richard Eyre meet at the Stage Door. Photo Nobby Clark
3
1988 • Peter Hall’s last year as Director of the National Theatre.
He stages three late Shakespeare plays (The Tempest, The Winter’s
Tale, and Cymbeline) in the Cottesloe then in the Olivier, and leaves
to start his own company in the West End.
September: Richard Eyre takes over as Director of the National.
Alan Bennett’s Single Spies, consisting of two short plays, contains
the first representation on the British stage of a living monarch. In
Howard Davies’ production of Dion Boucicault’s The Shaughraun,
the Olivier’s drum-revolve is put to full use for the first time by William
Dudley’s award-winning set.
To mark the company’s 25th birthday in October, The Queen
approves the title “Royal” for the National Theatre, and attends
an anniversary gala in the Olivier.
The funds raised are to set up a
National Theatre Endowment Fund.
Lord Rayne retires as Chairman
of the Board and is succeeded by
Lady Soames, daughter of Winston
Churchill.
1981 • Peter Hall’s production of Tony Harrison’s version of The
Oresteia of Aeschylus is staged in the Olivier, and later visits the
ancient theatre at Epidaurus, the first foreign company to play there.
1982 • Richard Eyre’s production of Guys and Dolls is an enormous
hit in the Olivier, eventually playing to nearly 400,000 people before
transferring to the West End, and enabling the National to withstand
the effect of cuts in real terms in the Arts Council’s grant.
1983 • The year’s hits include Peter Wood’s production of
The Rivals, the premieres of Christopher Hampton’s Tales from
Hollywood, directed by Peter Gill, and David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen
Ross directed by Bill Bryden.
1984 • Wild Honey, Michael
Frayn’s version of Chekhov’s
Platonov play, wins nine awards for
its director, Christopher Morahan,
designer, John Gunter, and lead
actor Ian McKellen.
Peter Gill founds the National’s
Studio, an experimental workshop
for the company, which encourages
new writing. It is funded by private
sources, and housed in the Old Vic
annexe which Ed Mirvish, owner of
the Old Vic Theatre, leases to the NT
free of charge.
1989 • The first Lloyds Bank
Theatre Challenge – a scheme
administered by the National’s
Education Department, which
encourages young people’s theatre
companies from all over Britain –
culminates in three “Showcase”
nights in the Olivier.
Laurence Olivier, the National’s first
Director, dies.
1985 • At a press conference
called to announce cuts in the NT’s
activities, including the closure of
the Cottesloe, Peter Hall attacks
government cut-backs in spending
on the arts. Government advice
to theatres is to seek private
sponsorship.
A series of hit productions includes
David Hare and Howard Brenton’s
Pravda and Alan Ayckbourn’s A
Chorus of Disapproval.
In the autumn, the Cottesloe reopens, thanks to a special grant from the GLC, which is soon to be
abolished. The Studio stages a festival of new work there.
1990 • New work this year includes
David Hare’s Racing Demon which
opens in the Cottesloe, transfers to
the Olivier, and later to the Lyttelton,
before touring the UK. With the
addition of his later plays, Murmuring
Judges and The Absence of War,
the Hare Trilogy in 1993 examines
the institutions of Church, Law and
Government.
The most ambitious tour ever staged
by the National begins: of Richard III and King Lear with Ian McKellen
and Brian Cox in the respective title roles, leading a company of 23
actors all over the world.
November: the National stages two special performances of Guys
and Dolls in memory of Ian Charleson, Sky Masterson in Richard
Eyre’s 1982 production. He had died of an Aids-related illness earlier
in the year, shortly after taking over as Hamlet in Eyre’s production.
The Christmas production is Alan Bennett’s version of Kenneth
Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, directed by Nicholas Hytner. It
proves enormously popular with all ages and is revived in 1991 and
1993.
1986 • Peter Hall’s adaptation of Orwell’s Animal Farm, which
opened in the Cottesloe in 1984, becomes the first production to
play in all three NT theatres. It also tours to nine cities in Britain
and six more overseas. The company tours abroad more than ever
before, including visits to France, Austria, Switzerland, the USA and
Canada.
1987 • Private sponsorship enables the National to present an
International Theatre Festival, produced by Thelma Holt. The first
visitors are from West Germany (Peter Stein’s production of O’Neill’s
The Hairy Ape), Sweden (Ingmar Bergman’s productions of Hamlet
and Miss Julie), Japan (Ninagawa’s Macbeth and Medea), and
Moscow (the Mayakovsky Theatre’s Tomorrow Was War).
1991 • A programme of sign language interpreted performances for
the deaf begins, and classes in sign language are given to members
of staff. Later, audio-described performances are also offered
regularly for blind and partially sighted people.
New work this year includes Alan Bennett’s The Madness of George
III. It is revived the following year and tours to America.
Peter Hall. Photo by Zoë Dominic
4
1992 • In the Cottesloe, director Declan Donnellan and designer
Nick Ormerod stage Millennium Approaches, the first part of Tony
Kushner’s “gay fantasia on national themes”, Angels in America. Part
two, Perestroika, follows in 1993.
Stephen Daldry’s first production for the National, J B Priestley’s An
Inspector Calls, opens in the Lyttelton; the following year, it moves
to the Olivier and then also transfers to the Aldwych. For the next 20
years it plays in various West End theatres, and tours the UK and all
over the world.
The Studio makes the first-ever visit to Lithuania by a British theatre
company: actors, designers, directors and theatre practitioners hold
classes, discussion groups and an open public forum.
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s
Carousel, directed by Nicholas
Hytner and choreographed by
Kenneth MacMillan, plays in the
Lyttelton, transferring the following
year to the West End. This was
to be MacMillan’s last work; he
died suddenly during the rehearsal
period.
York. Mary Stuart and The Designated Mourner bring French actress
Isabelle Huppert and American Mike Nichols to the English stage
for the first time; and Paul Scofield returns to the NT in John Gabriel
Borkman. Peter Hall also returns, to direct Sophocles’ Oedipus
Plays, which open in the ancient theatre of Epidaurus.
A visit by Robert Lepage with The Seven Streams of the River Ota
has some all day performances on Sundays – a first for the National.
The Arts Council Lottery Fund announces an award of £31.5 million
to develop and renovate the National’s building. A campaign is
launched to raise the £10.5 million needed to match this.
1997 • Othello, directed by Sam Mendes, embarks on a world
tour which includes first visits by the
National to Korea, New Zealand, and
mainland China.
October: Trevor Nunn succeeds
Richard Eyre as Director.
1998 • Trevor Nunn’s production
of a previously unperformed play
by Tennessee Williams, Not About
Nightingales, is a success in the
Cottesloe, in a co-production with
Moving Theatre and in association
with the Alley Theatre, Houston. It
later plays in Texas and transfers to
the Circle in the Square, New York.
David Hare’s Amy’s View and Patrick
Marber’s Closer transfer to the West
End.
1993 • During 1992-93, the
National undertakes more touring
than ever before. Over 34 weeks,
its work is seen, outside London, by
more than 200,000 people.
1994 • Jeremy Sams’ translation
of Cocteau’s Les Parents Terribles
goes to Broadway as Indiscretions,
and Stoppard’s Arcadia to the West
End. First visit of the National to
South Africa: the Market Theatre,
Johannesburg hosts a Studio
residency: 32 practitioners in
workshops, classes, seminars and
performances.
1999 • More of the National’s
work than ever before is seen in
the West End (Tom Stoppard’s
The Invention of Love, Michael
Frayn’s Copenhagen, Rodgers and
Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, as well
as Priestley’s An Inspector Calls –
still running), and on Broadway (Not
About Nightingales, Closer, and
Amy’s View).
Trevor Nunn launches a new
Ensemble of actors with Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida. Over
the next year they will appear in five more, widely differing plays, from
Gorky’s Summerfolk to the musical Honk! The Ugly Duckling.
The 100 most significant plays of the century are celebrated in
NT2000 Platforms.
Bill Bryden’s production of The Mysteries returns to the Cottesloe to
celebrate a new millennium.
1995 • Patrick Marber’s first play,
Dealer’s Choice, developed in the
Studio, opens in the Cottesloe, wins
the Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy, and transfers to the
West End. It will later tour all over the UK, to Ireland, Australia, and
the States, opening the 1996 Cultural Olympiad in Atlanta, Georgia.
David Hare’s Skylight wins the Olivier Award for Best Play, transfers
to the West End and Broadway, and in 1997, re-cast, tours the UK
and returns to the West End.
The first phase of BT National Connections, a partnership between
BT, the National, regional theatres, numerous playwrights, and
hundreds of young theatre companies, ends with showcases at the
National. The scheme continues to grow over the years.
Judi Dench wins both best actress Olivier awards – for Rodney
Ackland’s Absolute Hell in the Lyttelton and for Sondheim’s A Little
Night Music in the Olivier.
Mary Soames ends her Chairmanship of the Board, and is
succeeded by Sir Christopher Hogg.
2000 • John Caird’s production of Hamlet, with Simon Russell
Beale, visits Elsinore and later Belgrade as part of a major tour which
ends in New York before returning to the NT.
Two linked plays by Alan Ayckbourn, House and Garden, take
place in the Olivier and Lyttelton simultaneously, the cast hurrying
backstage for successive scenes. The fun continues in the foyers
after the performance with a village fete each evening.
1996 • Pam Gems’ new play, Stanley, with Antony Sher as the
artist Stanley Spencer, opens in the Cottesloe and transfers to New
2001 • Roger Michell’s production of Joe Penhall’s Cottesloe hit
Blue/Orange transfers to the West End. Three other new plays
Richard Eyre in rehearsal. Photo by John Haynes
5
2005 • Director Mike Leigh’s first play for the National, Two
Thousand Years opens in the Cottesloe and later transfers to the
Lyttelton. The Studio moves to temporary premises at the Oval
while waiting for the major refurbishment of its building on The Cut,
which will also provide a home for the NT Archive and a space for
NT Education. Christopher Hogg is succeeded as Chairman of the
Board by Sir Hayden Phillips.
premiered at the National – Charlotte Jones’ Humble Boy, Mark
Ravenhill’s Mother Clap’s Molly House, and Gregory Burke’s Gagarin
Way (a co-production between the Traverse, Edinburgh and the
NT Studio) – all transfer to the West End, as does Trevor Nunn’s
production of Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady.
Lisa Burger joins the Executive as Finance Director.
The National celebrates its 25th anniversary on the South Bank with
a series of Platforms, an exhibition, and a new book, In Rehearsal at
the National.
2006 • Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori’s musical, Caroline, or
Change and David Eldridge’s Market Boy each bring audiences
including 32% of first-time bookers to the National. The Travelex £10
Season continues to draw large audiences with classics like The
Alchemist and The Life of Galileo.
Up to 60% of NT bookings are now
taken on-line.
Three of the plays from 2005’s
Connections series – Mark
Ravenhill’s Citizenship, Enda Walsh’s
Chatroom, and Deborah Gearing’s
Burn – are given professional
productions in the Cottesloe.
Katie Mitchell and her company’s
groundbreaking version of Virginia
Woolf’s novel The Waves, uses live
video and sound recording.
2002 • A season named ‘Transformation’ presents 13 world
premieres in the Lyttelton (temporarily transformed by a single sweep
of seats from circle to stage) and
the Loft, a new 100-seat theatre
created in the circle foyer. From
April to September, new audiences
are introduced to new work at new
prices.
Trevor Nunn directs Glenn Close
in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar
Named Desire; Tom Stoppard’s epic
trilogy The Coast of Utopia; and
Cole Porter’s Anything Goes.
2002 • Trevor Nunn’s last
production as Director of the NT is
Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost,
using largely the same company as
for Anything Goes.
2007 • An adaptation of Michael
Morpurgo’s novel War Horse opens
in the Olivier in a collaboration with
Handspring Puppet Company: actors,
working with magnificent life-sized
horse puppets, conjure up the first
world war; it is revived the following
year and will go on to become the
National’s biggest ever success.
The NT tours for 25 weeks with
Rafta, Rafta…, The History Boys,
and Chatroom & Citizenship. Happy
Days with Fiona Shaw visits Paris,
Madrid, Washington, New York,
and Epidaurus, where its opening
performance is seen by 6,000
people, probably the largest audience ever to see Beckett in one
evening. The Travelex season includes Saint Joan with Anne-Marie
Duff.
The NT Studio re-opens in November, after a £6 million
refurbishment. It now houses the NT Archive alongside the John
Lyon education studio as well as two large spaces for rehearsal,
workshops and development work.
2003 • April: Nicholas Hytner takes
over as Director, with Nick Starr as
Executive Director, and announces
a season of new work. First to open
are Owen McCafferty’s Scenes from
the Big Picture, directed by Peter
Gill, in the Cottesloe; Jerry Springer
– The Opera by Richard Thomas
and Stewart Lee in the Lyttelton;
and Henry V, directed by Hytner,
with Adrian Lester in the title role, in
the Olivier. The latter is part of the
Travelex £10 Season – four plays presented over six months in the
Olivier, for which two thirds of the tickets are £10. New work in the
Cottesloe includes Kwame Kwei-Armah’s Elmina’s Kitchen, Martin
McDonagh’s The Pillowman, and Michael Frayn’s Democracy.
The epic production of His Dark Materials, a two-play adaptation by
Nicholas Wright of Philip Pullman’s trilogy, is staged in the Olivier.
2004 • The second Travelex £10 Season includes Simon
McBurney’s production of Measure for Measure in a collaboration
with Complicite, and David Hare’s examination of the lead-up to the
Iraq War, Stuff Happens.
Alan Bennett’s The History Boys opens in the Lyttelton. It goes on
to tour all over the UK, to Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia and
Broadway, and to play in the West End in two separate runs, winning
many awards in London and New York, and is made into a film.
2008 • After years of negotiation, the National introduces Sunday
performances. Peter Handke’s wordless play The Hour We Knew
Nothing of Each Other is staged in the Lyttelton – it has a cast
of 25 playing 450 characters. A co-production with Live Theatre,
Newcastle, brings Lee Hall’s The Pitmen Painters to the NT; it is
subsequently revived at the NT, tours the UK and Ireland, and
transfers to the West End. Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s Her Naked Skin is
the first original play by a female playwright in the Olivier.
Trevor Nunn in rehearsal. Photo by Gautier Deblonde
6
2009 • A pilot season of National Theatre Live starts broadcasting
live performances from the NT to cinema screens around the world.
Over 50,000 people see the final performance of Racine’s Phèdre
with Helen Mirren in the name part. War Horse transfers to the New
London Theatre, where it remains in 2013. According to the Society
of London Theatres, the NT is now responsible for about a third of
the entire play-going public in London.
Watch This Space, the summer festival in Theatre Square, celebrates
its tenth anniversary with its biggest programme yet. The National
sells its millionth Travelex £10 ticket. David Hare’s The Power of Yes
analyses the financial crisis, and Alan Bennett’s The Habit of Art
looks at the creative process behind the craft of theatre.
The National Theatre Inside Out festival sees activities spilling out
onto the riverbank to celebrate the Olympic and Jubilee summer.
Passing along the river during her Diamond Jubilee River Pageant,
The Queen is delighted by a salute from War Horse’s Joey on top
of the Olivier fly tower. Travelex Tickets (now £12) celebrate their
tenth season with productions including Timon of Athens with Simon
Russell Beale and a transfer to the Olivier of London Road. Simon
Stephens’ adaptation of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the
Dog in the Night-Time opens in the Cottesloe.
2013 • Curious Incident joins War Horse and One Man, Two
Guvnors in the West End, and, with the addition of Alan Bennett’s
Hymn and Cocktail Sticks (under
the title Untold Stories) in spring
2013, there are four NT productions
playing there. All four are presented
by the new company, NT
Productions, set up to extend the life
of NT productions without subsidy
in the West End and beyond.
Over the financial year 2012-13,
NT productions play to a global
audience of 3.6million.
Construction work begins for National
Theatre Future, an £80million
redevelopment programme which will
transform the facilities the National
offers audiences and artists, enhance
its relationship with the South Bank
environment and place education
firmly at the heart of its mission.
The Shed, a temporary venue in front
of the National, provides a third stage
during the Cottesloe’s closure for the
NT Future redevelopment; celebrating
new theatre that is original, ambitious
and unexpected.
Adrian Lester plays the title role in
Othello with Rory Kinnear as Iago.
15 October: Rufus Norris is
announced as the next Director of the
National, to take over in 2015.
22 October: The Queen pays a backstage visit to the National to
mark its 50th anniversary. The celebrations also include television
and radio documentaries, special Platforms and exhibitions – and the
once-in-a-lifetime performance ’50 Years on Stage’.
2010 • Katie Mitchell’s adaptation
of Dr Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat is
the NT’s first show for 3-6-yearolds; Howard Davies’ production
of Bulgakov’s The White Guard
continues his partnership with writer
Andrew Upton and their examination
of Russian classics. When London
Assurance is shown as part of NT
Live, a screen displays it free to
audiences in Theatre Square, and
the company come outside to take
a curtain-call at the end. Nicholas
Hytner’s production of Hamlet, with
Rory Kinnear in the lead, opens as
part of the Travelex £10 season
and subsequently transfers to the
Lyttelton and tours the UK.
John Makinson succeeds Hayden
Phillips as Chairman of the Board.
Lisa Burger becomes Chief
Operating Officer.
2011 • War Horse opens at Lincoln
Center and wins five Tony Awards.
Peter Hall directs Twelfth Night
in the Cottesloe to mark his 80th
birthday, with his daugher Rebecca
Hall as Viola.
Alecky Blythe and Adam Cork’s London Road opens, directed by
Rufus Norris. Its examination of the lives of residents of Ipswich
following the murder of five women is told in a unique style, the
music following the recorded speech patterns of Alecky Blythe’s
interviewees. Its original run in the Cottesloe is extended by popular
demand, leading to four short plays by writers new to the NT being
presented instead in a specially constructed temporary performance
space in the Paintframe as Double Feature.
Richard Bean’s One Man, Two Guvnors, from Goldoni, proves the
smash-hit of the year and later tours the UK and internationally,
transfers to the Adelphi, to Broadway, and then to Theatre Royal
Haymarket, where it will play until March 2014.
Danny Boyle directs Frankenstein with Benedict Cumberbatch and
Jonny Lee Miller alternating the roles of Creature and Doctor.
“The National Theatre can never
be what the public wants if it isn’t
allowed sometimes to be what the
public doesn’t want.”
Laurence Olivier
2012 • The National achieves its highest ever income, over double
that of ten years earlier. National Theatre Live now plays to 260
screens in the UK and a further 350 in 25 other countries.
Nicholas Hytner in rehearsal. Photo Ivan Kyncl
7
Background: The Old Vic. Photo Chris Arthur
50 Years on Stage
Members of the audience and company for the performance on
2 November 2013 were asked to contribute a favourite memory to be
printed in this souvenir programme.
Most photographs are from the NT Archive [email protected]
8
DAVID RYALL
RICHARD HAMPTON
Whilst preparing for a tour across Canada
during Expo 1967, it was decided that Sir
Laurence was unable to take Othello due to
ill health but, as he was needed to appear
personally at all the locations from Vancouver
to Toronto, he should take over a small part
in A Flea in Her Ear directed by Jacques
Charon. I was cast as Herr Schwartz, an
insane little German who repeatedly bursts
into the hotel foyer asking if a beautiful
“Mädchen” has called for him. On the day
Sir Laurence arrived for the first time to
rehearse, dressed in suit and tie as usual,
I had to rush from the side of the rehearsal
room, seize him by the lapels and throw him
to the ground. The scene began and I was
sitting at the side, petrified. However, the
moment came and there was nothing for it
but to rush on and attack. As I grabbed his
jacket and started yelling, he started back
a couple of paces and said “Ah! Oh, ho ho!
He’s got hold of the hairs on my chest!”
This caused me much embarrassment and
naturally a huge laugh from the company.
That first night of Hamlet at the Old Vic, the
opening production of the National Theatre.
As Bernardo, I spoke the first line, “Who’s
there?” – an extraordinary thing to say as
on that night everybody was there! That first
scene also had its dangers as, with Dan
Meaden, playing Francisco, I stood on what
Harold Hobson, critic of the Sunday Times,
described as “the mounting curves of Sean
Kenny’s dangerous rocks”, twelve, fifteen
feet above the front of the stage with a
sheer drop to the audience beneath…
The “dangerous rocks”, when reversed on
the revolve, formed the scenery for the Court
Scenes, but the revolve kept on breaking
down and many a time during the run, as
the lights cross-faded for a scene change,
the cry of “Push!” would ring out as actors
shouldered the scenery round.
SHEILA REID
Seven inspirational years. Working with
brilliant directors – Ingmar Bergman,
Jacques Charon, Tyrone Guthrie, Dexter,
Gaskill, Dunlop, and Sir Laurence of course.
His electrifying performance at the readthrough of Othello (my first day with the
Company) and later, when going on as
Raymonde’s understudy in A Flea in Her
Ear, his coming in especially to watch, and
feeding me champagne and gossip in the
interval (“This is what we do in the star
dressing-room!”)
Actors, designers, wigs, wardrobe, crew,
admin: all part of the family. How blessed to
have been in at the beginning of this glorious
and ever-expanding institution.
RUPERT RHYMES
Old Vic Theatre Manager
The early days of the National at the Old Vic
hold wonderful memories of productions,
experiences and challenges for those of us
involved. The scrabble to transform the Vic
for the October 22 low-key opening in 1963,
then the seemingly non-stop demand for
tickets, particularly the nightmare of sold-out
Othello performances and the steps we took
to devise new booking arrangements (in that
non-computer age), the procession of anyone
who was anyone attending shows, through
to the controversial Oedipus with actors
strapped to the auditorium pillars, all remain
vividly in my memory after half a century.
MICHAEL BLAKEMORE
A few days before rehearsals for Long Day’s Journey Into Night began, John Dexter had
given me a useful tip about how to handle Olivier. “When he makes his first entrance,” he
explained, “he’s a bit like an animal released into a new cage. He wants to sniff out the
available space. Let him go for a bit of a roam. He likes to show the audience both sides
of his face.” I thanked John for this interesting tip and didn’t disbelieve him, but when
the moment came to put it into practice my nerve failed. Larry and Connie [Constance
Cummings] had exchanged their first few speeches in a loose embrace; now they were to
sit down. The father’s rocker was barely a yard from where Larry stood. It seemed absurd
to suggest that he go wandering around the room for no reason. I asked him to sit down
and he did so. However, some days later when we returned to the scene, he asked politely
whether there could be a copy of the daily paper on the desk across the room. The stage
management scuttled around to find the appropriate prop. During the next page of dialogue
he crossed to the desk, picked up the paper, came downstage facing the audience, thumbed
his way absently through its pages looking to left and right, crossed downstage the way he’d
just come, deposited the paper on the window seat on the opposite side of the stage, then
came to the table and sat in the rocker. I cursed myself for my earlier timidity, but I was also
reassured that he had set about getting his way over this small matter with the utmost courtesy.
Top left: Rehearsing for A Flea in her Ear, 1966: Laurence Olivier and David Ryall. Photo Chris Arthur
Top right: Ernie Davis, stage door-keeper at the Old Vic in the 1960s. Photo Chris Arthur
Above: Kenneth Mackintosh, Constance Cummings, Laurence Olivier, Michael Blakemore and Ronald Pickup
rehearsing Long Day’s Journey into Night, 1971. Photo Zoë Dominic
9
DAVID BRADLEY
Peter James’ Mobile production of Twelfth
Night. After one performance, sadly the
actor playing Toby Belch, David Bauer, died
during the night. It was a touring production
and we had no understudies. Because Sir
Laurence had played the part some years
before, someone had the bright idea of
asking him if he would reprise the role.
For some reason Michael Blakemore was
given this onerous task and, because I was
playing Andrew Aguecheek, the outcome
of this was of great interest and indeed
excitement to me. I waited a few yards
down the corridor at the Aquinas Street
headquarters. Twenty minutes later, Michael
emerged from Sir Laurence’s office, looking
even paler than he normally did, and with a
rabbit-caught-in-headlights look on his face.
I rushed up to him and said “Is he doing it?”
He said, “No. I am.” Apparently Sir Laurence
had discovered that Michael had also played
the part some years before and turned the
tables on him. And so, I went on tour with
Michael and, he being of a similar slim build
to me, we must have looked like a doubleact from LS Lowry.
GAWN GRAINGER
I remember walking through that stage door
on the Waterloo Road in 1972. A small door,
but on the other side the land of Giants.
The Giants of the theatrical world. To be
embraced by them was to be taken into
a fold of magic. The National Theatre, the
pinnacle of the theatrical world. To touch
hands with the greats. Actors, directors,
designers. How lucky I was. How lucky I
am. I salute you and raise my glass to fifty
glorious years.
BERNARD GALLAGHER
My four years with the National at the Old
Vic were exhilarating and formative – one
theatre led by the most prodigious actor of
the day, covering a huge array of work that
demanded teamwork at its best and gave us
challenges and variety that were invaluable.
PETER SHAFFER
At a performance of Black Comedy:
I truly think that the most wonderful moment
I have ever experienced is being in the
National Theatre at Chichester, seated
behind the largest and seemingly sternest
middle-aged man and watching him
becoming slowly absolutely crazed with
laughter, finally watching him fall completely
out of his seat into the aisle and in a very
weak voice calling up to the actors “Please!
Oh Please stop it. Please...stop it. I can’t
take any more!”
As a playwright I must admit I can’t
remember a more delightful thing happening
to me inside a theatre.
ANTONY SHER
As soon as I arrived in London from South
Africa in 1968, I started going to shows
at the National, then at the Old Vic, under
Olivier. To come from Cape Town, a cultural
backwater in those days, and to suddenly
see world-class theatre, was like a shock to
the system, a beautiful shock. It changed
all my youthful notions about acting, about
drama, about what the Arts could do. It
changed my life.
JONATHAN KENT
Within days of coming to Britain for the first
time, I saw Olivier’s Three Sisters – designed
by Svoboda – at the National at the Old Vic.
Everything about it – the acting, design,
sense of company – was, I thought, exciting
and astonishing. Now, all these years later,
and having worked there very happily
several times, it still astonishes me that it
has retained its capacity for re-invigoration
and re-invention.
It is, I suppose inevitably an institution
– usually death to theatre – but, under
its successive directors, it has resisted
institutionalisation.
MERVYN WILLIS
A player in Hamlet (1963) and Love for Love
(1965) and Deputy Stage Manager.
Noel Coward in rehearsals of Hay Fever:
“Giving comedy to Tony [Anthony Nicholls] is
like giving a soufflé to a horse”.
Accommodating Soviet Foreign Minister
Andrei Gromyko at the height of the Cold
War and the Queen Mother at the same
performance of Othello. Answer: seat Andrei
Gromyko in the stalls, the QM in the dress
circle and leave her to solve the dilemma.
Detente! QM invites Gromyko up for G & Ts
in the Interval – “what Cold War?”
Being on stage as a singer in Love for Love
with Leonard Whiting, and experiencing the
vocal power of Laurence Olivier’s genius as
he brought tittle-tattle to a fine art in the role
of Tattle. A truly magical period! URSULA GAYLER
1974. When the National Theatre was about
to leave the Old Vic, it was Lilian Baylis’
Centenary Year and a gala evening called
Tribute to the Lady was performed on May
6th. As one of the dressers there, I was
lucky enough to be asked to look after
the ladies. And what ladies: Dames Peggy
Ashcroft, Sybil Thorndike, Edith Evans,
Ninette de Valois, Wendy Hiller and Flora
Robson. Along with four knights, Marius
Goring, Paul Scofield and several actors
from the NT company, it was a curtain call
line-up I will never forget.
Louise Purnell, Michael Byrne, Derek Jacobi, Maggie Smith, Albert Finney,
and Paul Curran in Peter Shaffer’s Black Comedy. Photo Zoë Dominic
10
BILL PATERSON
So many memories since being on stage
on that extraordinary first night of Guys and
Dolls in 1982 and the hundreds of joyous
performances that have followed over the
years, but as a memento of the NT I’ve
chosen a handwritten letter from nearly 20
years earlier that I carried in my wallet till it
disintegrated.
One evening in 1964 I travelled from
Glasgow to The King’s Theatre in Edinburgh
to see the NT’s legendary production of
Uncle Vanya on their first ever national tour.
I was enthralled by Redgrave, Plowright and
Olivier and wrote a letter to Sir Laurence
thanking him and cheekily requesting that
next time they visited Scotland he would
include Glasgow in the tour and save
me seven shillings and sixpence return
train fare. Two weeks later I received that
hand-written reply from the man himself,
promising to do just that. I was stunned at
his generosity and in his phrase ‘I’m mindful
of your 7/6d.’ I could hear the cadence of
that thrilling voice.
No wonder the National Theatre started so
well.
FRANCES DE LA TOUR
CHARLES KAY
It was after rehearsal one day that I decided to see The Dance of Death again. It turned out
to be the hundredth performance and I’d much admired the first night. But on this particular
evening I experienced something quite new to me. It wasn’t that it was just the best; it was
something totally different in kind. And watching Laurence Olivier I felt sad for all those
professional critics, chroniclers of the age, who would never have caught it. But what luck for
me who could now boast that I’d seen at least one example of great acting.The next day at
rehearsals of Love’s Labour’s Lost, which he was directing, I was hopelessly tongue-tied. I
said not a word about it to him. But I will never forget it.
When the National Theatre ‘opened’ 50
years ago at the Old Vic, I was 18 years
old, and I remember watching almost every
production. The ones that have made the
most lasting impression remind me of why I
came into the theatre:
The major four for me back then were;
Joan Plowright’s outstanding Saint Joan,
The Royal Hunt of the Sun with Robert
Stephens, Much Ado About Nothing with
Maggie Smith and Olivier’s riveting Othello,
also with Maggie. Maggie remains one of the
reasons I wanted to become an actress.
Some of the funniest moments in my mind
were watching Olivier (with my then-to-be
husband Tom Kempinski, though I didn’t
know it at the time!) in Love for Love, and in
one particular scene, witnessing Olivier richly
clad in Restoration gear (after leaping from a
balcony to impress his sweetheart) having to
adjust the padding to his calf!
We all hated the concrete when the NT
opened on the South Bank. For a thousand
reasons to do with Plays we all love it now.
No more so than being a member of the
audience at an NT Platform performance
listening to Peter Brook painstakingly explain
to us what acting is. And therein lay what it
means to him to be a director.
Top: Laurence Olivier in The Dance of Death, 1967. Photo Zoë Dominic
Bottom: Sheila Reid and Maggie Smith in The Beaux’ Stratagem, 1970. Photo Chris Arthur
11
OLIVER COTTON
My audition for Olivier. Aquinas Street.
March 1966. There were apologies – the
rehearsal room was taken. Would I mind
doing my audition in the boardroom? Heart
pounding I followed down the Nissen hut
corridor. They opened the door. Oh God!
The tiny room was almost entirely filled
with a giant mahogany table! I’d prepared
a flamboyant selection, which required
physicality! This was disaster! Suddenly a
voice. I turned. There he stood, looking like
Harry Worth. “What are you going to do for
me baby?” I had no choice. In one bound
I was up, up on the table – Olivier inches
away, gazing in myopic bemusement at
my adrenalized festival of fear but – to my
astonishment – I got in! I think he admired
my cheek. I still have the telegram.
Top: The huts in Aquinas Street where the NT’s admin offices were housed 1963 – 75. Photo Chris Arthur
Above left: Aquinas Street rehearsal room. Photo John Haynes
Above right: Aquinas Street cat. Photo John Haynes
12
RICHARD MANGAN
A hot, dusty day in early June, 1967 in the
rehearsal room at Aquinas Street. As a
newly arrived ASM I am on my hands and
knees helping my stage manager, John
Rothenberg, mark out the set for Three
Sisters, my first new production. The door
opens and the caretaker, I think, comes in,
a burly man, sweaty, in collarless shirt and
braces. Ignoring him, I carry on marking out
until Rothenberg says “Richard, I don’t think
you’ve met Sir Laurence.”
The grey eyes fix me. “Welcome, dear boy –
don’t get up.”
I don’t think I could have done.
intrusion. I feebly stood there, an actor
without a move. The dilemma was resolved
when a more seasoned member of the
company came breezing in, immediately sat
at Sir Laurence’s table and I was beckoned
over to join them with my tea and toast.
TOM STOPPARD
One day Laurence Olivier sat in on a
rehearsal of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Are Dead (1967). He made one or two useful
suggestions and got up to go back to his
office down the corridor in the Aquinas
Street huts. At the door he turned and
smiled. ‘Just the odd pearl,’ he said, and left.
JASON BARNES
NT 1971 – 2009
As a student in Chichester in 1963 and
1964, I saw Saint Joan, Uncle Vanya, Royal
Hunt of the Sun, Dutch Courtesan and of
course Olivier’s Othello.
My dream of working at the National came
as DSM to Richard Mangan in 1971 at the
New Theatre; Joan Plowright, Paul Scofield
in Rules of the Game; Olivier and Constance
Cummings in Long Day’s Journey. By
1977 I opened the Cottesloe as Production
Manager and racked up some 200
productions there.
Favourite shows? Lark Rise, The Mysteries,
Sweeney Todd, Beggar’s Opera. Most
frequent designers? Bill Dudley (18 shows)
and my cousin Alison Chitty – 29!
LYN HAILL
While the new NT was being built, the
administrative offices were housed in huts
off Aquinas Street, SE1. Under and around
the huts lived a huge family of feral cats,
against whom Harry Henderson – caretaker,
handyman, first-night commissionaire and
all-round amazing factotum – waged a
constant battle. One of the cats, sensing an
opportunity in show business, put himself
up for adoption by regularly coming through
the back window and seating himself in
Sue Higginson’s filing tray. She took him
home and he lived a long and happy life as
Thomas Aquinas.
JOHN CAIRD
Five memories plucked from hundreds. As a student, watching Petherbridge and Stride
in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at the Old Vic in 1967. Simon Russell Beale
playing Hamlet in a packed-to-the-rafters National Theatre in Belgrade, just after the end of
the Kosovo war. Tony Sher turning himself, little by little, into Stanley Spencer. Tim Hatley’s
gorgeous grass and beehive set for Humble Boy. Denis Quilley, forty years after playing the
title role of Candide in the West End, singing his heart out as Martin in the finale of the last
performance at the Olivier, tears streaming down his face.
MICHAEL FEAST
I walked into the Nissen hut that served as the National’s rehearsal rooms and canteen early
in 1972 for the read through of The Tempest. I was to play Ariel directed by Peter Hall with
John Gielgud as Prospero. The assembled old guard was formidable. Olivier was there, the
outgoing genius of the NT, with a degree of bad feeling between him and Hall which lent
an edge to the proceedings. Arthur Lowe, Cyril Cusack, Denis Quilley – all beautiful actors.
Gielgud was fluffy, unnerved by Olivier’s presence.
Then there was us – the new breed of wild children from the sixties perhaps typified by
Gryphon, the psychedelic folk rock band who wrote the gorgeous melodies for Ariel’s songs.
It was an historical collision of two worlds. Who could have known then that the seeds of
cross-pollination of age, class, ethnicity and explicit sexual orientation that now blooms so
abundantly on the National’s stages were being sown that day?
Keith Skinner
Summer 1973 and I had recently joined
the National Theatre. One morning I arrived
for rehearsal and went into the canteen,
where the only other person present was Sir
Laurence. Panic. Should I sit at the same
table? Sir Laurence was studying a script.
My presence would surely be an unwelcome
Top: John Stride and Edward Petherbridge in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, 1967. Photo Anthony Crickmay
Above: Rose and Nellie, who ran the canteen at Aquinas Street. Photo John Haynes
13
IAN WILLIAMS
As a student in the early seventies I would
often pass the Old Vic and the building
works on the South Bank and say to myself
‘One day I’m going to work there’, never
thinking I would. However, one of those days
Lady Luck may have heard my thoughts
and made that dream come true. If truth be
told, it was [former Head of Lighting] Lenny
Tucker who made that dream happen.
I look back over the years and am still in
awe of all the amazing and challenging
shows I had the privilege and pleasure to
have been involved with.
ROB BARNARD
Earliest NT memory – walking across
Waterloo Bridge as a drama student in
the early 70s and gazing down at the
foundations of the National emerging from
the mud – little did I know then I would
spend 35 years of my working life at the
National.
Highlights include working on Alan
Ayckbourn’s production of A View from the
Bridge and watching my two boys, then
aged 8 and 12, misbehaving themselves on
stage with Ian McKellen, as supernumeraries
in Trevor Nunn’s production of An Enemy of
the People.
Low moments include: as sound operator on
Amadeus, playing in the wrong track for Paul
Scofield to mime playing the piano to – and
doing it at two consecutive performances.
Moments of bliss include watching ‘Sit
Down You’re Rocking the Boat’ nightly as
sound operator on Guys and Dolls and, as a
duty manager, watching from the back of the
Olivier stalls the Hallelujah Chorus at the end
of Coram Boy.
ANDRE PTASZYNSKI
NT Board member 2001 to 2010
It was 1969 and we’d come up from Suffolk
as a party of sixth-formers to see a matinee
at the Old Vic. Afterwards, two friends and I
wandered over to Waterloo Bridge to see the
site of Lasdun’s new National Theatre. It was
mud and more mud broken by two dozen
concrete and iron pilings and an earthmover.
I had no real idea. Our history master, Mr.
Pegg, approached us and on returning to
school I was suspended for “smoking a
Top: The NT under construction, 1973
14
cigarette on Waterloo Bridge”. But perhaps I
was imagining the hundreds of joyous nights
in front of me, borne on that mud.
RICHARD PILBROW
Theatre Design Consultant
In 1962, Sir Laurence called to ask me to fix
the terrible lighting he found in Chichester.
Unfortunately he asked the day before
opening night, and there was no time to
make the needed changes. He was very
disappointed. To me, it was the end of my
career!
Next January he rang: “Dickie, dear boy. It’s
January. We open in June. Does that give
you enough fucking time!”
I became his lighting director. With my
Theatre Projects team, we lit most of the
NT productions for many years. I joined the
Building Committee for the new building,
and then became the theatre consultant.
We designed the stages and equipment
of the Olivier and Lyttelton Theatres. We
helped the architect plan the building and
we designed the Cottesloe Theatre.
Through construction delays, much of the
technology was incomplete in 1976, but
finally all was finished. The NT became the most advanced drama
theatre in the world, which began my work as an international theatre
designer.
EDWARD HALL
I remember standing on the new carpet on the opening night of the
building in 1976, the smell of fresh paint and glue thick in the air. It
was perhaps the proudest moment of my life when I sat in the Olivier
watching the first performance of my production of Edmond nearly
thirty years later. Working at the National has always felt to me like
coming home, like being part of an enormous inclusive community of
artists exploring the world in which we live through live performance.
It gives theatre in this country a centre and a constituency that is vital
and unique.
ROSEMARY BEATTIE
In 1974, as a new Stage Manager, I found myself at the Old Vic,
rehearsing and running productions which should have been
performing on the South Bank. Each day we visited the exciting, rather
terrifying new building, where we tried to make things work and find
our way around corridors that led nowhere, no signs, and no canteen!
There were enormous problems and delays, early performances
of Tamburlaine happened outside instead of inside the Olivier, but
eventually the big day came.
Our feelings of exhaustion were overtaken by pride and the thrill of
being part of this great family achievement.
Top right: Peter Hall greets The Queen, Royal opening of the National Theatre, 25 October 1976;
Laurence Olivier is next in line. Photo Nobby Clark
Above right: Rehearsing Tamburlaine The Great outside on the riverside, 1976: Peter Hall, Barbara Jefford,
Denis Quilley, Albert Finney and Susan Fleetwood. Photo Nobby Clark
15
JUNE WATSON
During rehearsals for Lark Rise (Cottesloe
1978), all the cast, one by one, complained
to director Bill Bryden that, at the very
beginning of the show, the audience
couldn’t possibly accept us all standing
there for ages as in a village photograph,
while the sun rose behind us, without a
single word of dialogue. How wrong we
were! At the first performance, with the
brilliant set and lighting by William Dudley
and the music of the Albion Band flooding
the auditoriium, it was theatrical magic – and
not a moment too long.
And the promenade tickets were only £1.50!
TREVOR RAY
Commissioned to carve Thomas Hardy’s
The Dynasts to a theatrical evening, my
proposed text, with John Tams’ music
replacing The Furies, was to run more than
three hours, with a cast of 47 parts shared
among Bill Bryden’s Cottesloe group. Dustin
Hoffman, wanting to return to the stage, Bill
persuaded him to play Napoleon. An initial
production conversation went thus;
Bryden: It’s about Napoleon wanting to
found a Dynasty…?
Adapter: Begins with the Battle of Trafalgar,
ends with the Battle of Waterloo…
Bryden: Just because Bill Dudley landed a
helicopter in the Cottesloe…
Remember the problems of the pennyfarthing Rosinante and Sancho Panza’s
tricycle?
Adapter: OK, OK…so, agreed…no horses!
Despite successful workshopping, The
Dynasts didn’t happen and Mr Hoffman
played Willy Loman on Broadway instead.
ALISON RAE
who has worked in Catering, Music, and
House Management
What privileged access I’ve had as a
member of staff – to be able pop in at any
time during the show and not only re-live for
myself but to see the audience enjoy:
Any part of Guys and Dolls.
The start of Frankenstein – as the audience
came in from 7.15.
Last five minutes of Act 1 of One Man, Two
Guvnors (love the line ‘we’ll just go and fill
out some Health and Safety forms now...’)
The end of Coram Boy.
And any part of The Mysteries when you
could join in the dancing and singing.
Actors dance with the audience after promenade performance of The Passion
16
IAIN MACKINTOSH
MICHAEL MAYHEW
In October 1973 I sketched the first designs for the National’s third
theatre: a series of options for a central free space surrounded on
three sides by fixed galleries. Models were made and approved
by John Bury and Peter Hall then passed to the Lasdun office to
become contract documents. The cost of the fit-up was around
£200,000. Named the Cottesloe, the theatre opened in 1977.
Earlier this year architects Haworth Tompkins showed in the Olivier
foyers their digital impression of the current refurbishment. They
chose the shallow rake end stage version, sketched in 1973 but
rendered unrealizable by the installation in the 1980s of an inflexible
steep rake of seating. Both steep and shallow rake had always been
envisaged but there had been no money for the enabling mechanical
devices now being installed, thanks to the generosity of the donor
after whom the Cottesloe will be renamed.
In 1975, just prior to the move to the new National Theatre on the
South Bank, I was asked to come in to the graphics department
(housed in a pre-fab behind the Old Vic) for one week’s work. I
stayed 35 years as graphic designer, then art director, and my
bosses were Peter Hall, Richard Eyre, Trevor Nunn, and Nick Hytner.
My first assignment was to design a poster for The Playboy of
the Western World, directed by Bill Bryden. I loved the work, the
ambience, and the people, and consequently, fell in love with the
National and never wanted to work anywhere else. The icing on the
cake, I met my wife Brenda Blethyn in the Green Room of the NT.
EDNA DORÉ
PATRICK MARBER
DERMOT CROWLEY
The last night party for Peter Wood’s hugely successful production
of The Double Dealer in the Olivier. Black Velvet flowed in the Green
Room. For 18 months she’d coiffed my wig, and sculpted my false
nose for the part of Careless. “Do you like Woody Allen?” she said.
“I love Woody Allen” I replied. “Manhattan’s just opened” she said,
“do you fancy it?” Thirty-four years on, we’ve just been to see Blue
Jasmine. How time flies by, so beautifully.
In my teens in the late 1970s I fell in love with the National Theatre. I
loved the building, the plays, the cafes and the bookshop. It seemed
to me the most glamorous and civilized place on earth. It became
my hang-out. The place I went to read, watch, listen, write, learn
and dream. When I wrote my first play at the NT Studio in 1993 and
then directed it in the Cottesloe in 1995 I felt I had gone to heaven.
I am as thrilled as ever to be able to enter via the Stage Door. I met
my wife Debra fifty yards from that door. When our first child became
of play-going age we took him, of course, to the NT. My gratitude
and devotion to the institution, the building and the people within it
remains undimmed. Thank you NT for the life you have given me.
I would like to thank the National Theatre for several years of
exciting work not only as an actor but perfecting other skills such
as Spinning for Mrs Noah, Pillow Lace in Lark Rise, Abseiling in
Midsummer Night’s Dream, Vietnamese in Dispatches, Flying as
Fairy Godmother, Magic Tricks and Morris Dancing in The Mysteries
– all of which have proved invaluable to me in my latter years.
Also I’d like to thank Health and Safety for not allowing the Director
of The Hunchback of Notre Dame to have me swinging out over the
audience whilst suspended from the ceiling in a cage playing ‘The
Last Rose of Summer’ on the violin.
Left: Edna Doré as Mrs Noah and JG Devlin as Noah in rehearsal for
The Mysteries in the Cottesloe. Photo Michael Mayhew
Right: Ralph Richardson in The Double Dealer, 1978. Photo John Haynes
17
our son Kasper still can’t stand accordions,
which featured in the show. Fortunately,
despite these harsh beginnings, he’s as
smitten by the theatre as we are.
PAUL HILTON
ANASTASIA HILLE
Grabbing digestive biscuits off the props
table backstage at the Cottesloe for
sustenance (and to stave off chundering)
at seven months pregnant, while playing
Clytemnestra during Ted Hughes’ wonderful
version of The Oresteia, with my husband,
the father of the baby, playing Orestes and
later stabbing me horribly to death before
dragging me off stage. This was quite a
challenge for him, given my proportions by
then. A real family affair. Not surprisingly,
Growing up in Oldham I thought the National
Theatre was a mythical place until I saw it
on a school trip in all its grey concrete glory.
With my regional accent and background
it may be a struggle but I wanted to be a
“serious” actor and “serious” actors play at
the National! 25 years on I’ve spent more
time in the National’s rehearsal rooms and
corridors and on its stages than any other
theatre. The whole building reeks of precious
memories, stories and “serious” actors!”
CHRISTOPHER MORAHAN
As my wife Anna and I entered the Lyttelton
Theatre for the opening night of my first
production at the NT, State of Revolution by
Robert Bolt, I was approached by one of the
Top: Patrick Marber, Matt Bardock, Nigel Lindsay and Steve Coogan in rehearsal for
Blue Remembered Hills, 1996. Photo Hugo Glendinning
Left: Anastasia Hille in The Oresteia, 1999. Photo Ivan Kyncl
18
Stage Management team who whispered to
me… “The Props staff have gone on strike.”
“What about the rifles?” I asked, “This
play is about a revolution. What can we
do without rifles and blanks? Go pop and
pretend?”
“They are locked in the prop cupboard” was
the answer “There’s nothing we can do.”
The ASM returned backstage and we went
to our seats, surrounded by a first night
audience eager for action, and I dreading
a fiasco. The first scene set in Italy passed
without mishap, but in the next scene Lenin
arrives in St Petersburg and is greeted by
the Red Army… I whispered to Anna, “Look,
rifles!” Bang! Bang! Bang! A salute! We were
saved!
I found out afterwards what had happened
backstage. We had quite a tough cast and
they had attacked the prop cupboard –
kicking in the door with their heavy boots
and seizing the guns, just as Eisenstein had
filmed the sailors doing in the Battleship
Potemkin. A Soviet moment on London’s
South Bank!
50 YEARS ON STAGE
About tonight
There are at least fifty different versions of this show. We have two hours to
put fifty years on stage, two hours to conjure up an impression of what the
National Theatre has achieved. Although we’ve tried to cover as much as
possible by seeking out short scenes from as many plays as possible, I’m
horrified by how much we’ve had to leave out. So it may be easiest to start
by saying what this evening is not.
It’s not a compendium of the best things the
National has done over the last 50 years.
“Best” is best left to the arts pages. And
in any event, many of our most famous
productions of the classical repertoire were
celebrated for performances by actors who
are no longer with us. So our classical work
is – inevitably – less present than it should be.
Nor have we tried to represent only the
most influential or important plays to have
started life on our stages. Many of them
defy any attempt to lift out a short scene
that is enjoyable, or comprehensible, out of
context, and we’ve made the assumption
that tonight’s television audience shouldn’t
have to know anything about the plays
from which the show is put together. So
it seemed impossible, for instance, to
find a 4- or 5-minute scene from Patrick
Marber’s Closer, which is devastating in its
entirety. And the same problem ruled out
Michael Frayn’s Democracy, Pam Gems’
Stanley, David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen
Ross, Christopher Hampton’s Tales From
Hollywood, Nicholas Wright’s Vincent In
Brixton. The shortest extract that does
justice to Harold Pinter’s Betrayal (a play
that attracts any number of superlatives)
lasts 12 minutes; the same is true of Lucy
Prebble’s The Effect, and even the shortest
story from Martin McDonagh’s amazing play
The Pillowman is surprisingly long – though
none of them felt like it in performance.
Peter Shaffer’s The Royal Hunt of the Sun
has a cumulative power that would be
diminished by the presentation of a bleeding
chunk. You could fill an entire evening with
scenes by our most prolific writers – Pinter,
Shaffer, David Hare, Tom Stoppard (the
only playwright to have given us a new play
in each decade of our half century), Alan
Ayckbourn, Howard Brenton, Alan Bennett.
All of them have written major plays which
aren’t represented tonight.
is loosely chronological, it isn’t trying to
tell the full story of the National Theatre.
We have collaborated with the BBC on a
historical narrative – Adam Low and Martin
Rosenbaum’s documentary Arena: The
National Theatre, shown over the last couple
of weeks on BBC4, will soon be available on
DVD. It’s terrific. I recommend it.
And although tonight’s staggering cast
list is testament to how deep-rooted is
the affection for the National amongst the
acting profession, we can’t do full justice
to even the most luminous performances
that have graced our stages. A precarious
idea brought into life by Sir Laurence Olivier,
the twentieth century’s greatest actor,
has at some point embraced almost all of
the great actors that have followed in his
wake. But even the most powerful of stage
performances survive only in the memory of
those who saw them. For those who were
there, tonight’s re-creations are maybe best
seen as theatrical madeleines – enough to
prompt a shiver of recollection. For those
who weren’t, maybe they can give an idea of
what the fuss was about.
That there has been too much to choose
from is the fault of Laurence Olivier and his
successors – Peter Hall, Richard Eyre and
Trevor Nunn. The flow of memorable work
has never stopped. But I hope the scenes
we’ve chosen give some idea of the range of
our work, of the way we’ve always sought to
play the past and the present against each
other, of our determination to reflect the
nation on our stages, and of our appetite for
new ideas and new forms. And I hope the
evening is a reminder of the pre-eminence of
our actors, writers, directors and designers
– and that its scale and complexity (both
considerable) demonstrate that they are
supported by stage and technical teams
second to none.
Although the structure of tonight’s show
Though a few minutes of the show come
from the video archive (from televised
studio adaptations of NT productions, from
publicity material, from footage shot for
awards ceremonies), most of it is live. The
more recent the production, the easier it’s
been to get together the original cast –
most of the second half of tonight’s show
is played by the actors who first played
their parts, sometimes – it has to be said
– when they aren’t any longer entirely age
appropriate. (Eight history boys in their mid
thirties may require the suspension of your
disbelief.) But all the actors in the show have
been members of the National Theatre at
some point in the last fifty years, and you’ll
see – decade by decade – how astonishing
is their collective distinction. I want to single
out only the small band who were part of Sir
Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre company
when it first took up residence at the Old Vic
50 years ago. Dame Joan Plowright went
last week to the Old Vic itself to record a
speech from Saint Joan, which she played
there in 1963; Dame Maggie Smith will
give a speech from The Beaux’ Stratagem;
Charles Kay will appear in a scene from The
National Health in the same role he created
45 years ago, and Sir Michael Gambon
and Sir Derek Jacobi will take the roles in
No Man’s Land originally played by their
great predecessors Sir Ralph Richardson
and Sir John Gielgud. I couldn’t be happier
or prouder that they are here and that fifty
years on, they are still carrying the torch.
My grateful thanks are due to the
playwrights who have allowed us to hack
small chunks out of their work. We have
tried to root tonight’s show in the way it
was staged by the directors and designers
who took care of its many different scenes
first time around. I am grateful to them, and
sorry that we shall sometimes – inevitably
– fall short of what they achieved. The
National Theatre’s physical surroundings
have changed since it took up residence
at the Old Vic in 1963, but its identity has
never been bound up in bricks and mortar
(or concrete). It has always been about who
works here. Tonight’s cast, and tonight’s
audience, are a small part only of who we’ve
been; and when the next celebration comes
round, in 2063, I have no doubt that there
will be as much to choose from as there has
been tonight.
Nicholas Hytner
19
50 YEARS ON STAGE
Hamlet
Bedroom Farce
Angels in America
by William Shakespeare, Old Vic 1963
by Alan Ayckbourn, Lyttelton 1977
Original Directors Alan Ayckbourn
and Peter Hall
Original Designers Timothy O’Brien &
Tazeena Firth
by Tony Kushner, Cottesloe 1992
Original Director Declan Donnellan
Original Designer Nick Ormerod
Francisco Matthew Barker
Barnardo Stanley Townsend
Horatio Anna Maxwell Martin
Marcellus Adrian Lester
Ghost Derek Jacobi
Ernest Nicholas le Prevost
Delia Penelope Wilton
Prior Walter Andrew Scott
Louis Ironson Dominic Cooper
Richard III
A short film about Laurence Olivier
Saint Joan
by Bernard Shaw, Old Vic 1963
Original Director John Dexter
Joan Plowright, filmed at the Old Vic,
11 October 2013
Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern Are Dead
by Tom Stoppard, Old Vic 1967
Original Director Derek Goldby
Rosencrantz Benedict Cumberbatch
Guildenstern Kobna Holdbrook-Smith
Hay Fever
by Noël Coward, Old Vic 1964
Director Noël Coward
Myra Arundel Maggie Smith
David Bliss Anthony Nicholls
The Beaux’ Stratagem
by George Farquhar, Old Vic 1970
Original Director William Gaskill
Mrs Sullen Maggie Smith
The National Health
by Peter Nichols, Old Vic 1969
Original Director Michael Blakemore
Original Designer Patrick Robertson
Matron Deborah Findlay
Sister Maggie Service
Lake Akiya Henry
Sweet Olivia Vinall
Barnet Matt Cross
Mackie James Hayes
Ash Anthony O’Donnell
Flagg Tim McMullan
Loach Charles Kay
Foster Gawn Grainger
Dr Bird Michelle Terry
Amadeus
by Peter Shaffer, Olivier 1979
Director Peter Hall
Designer John Bury
The Absence of War
Guys and Dolls
based on a story and characters of
Damon Runyon, music & lyrics by Frank Loesser
book by Jo Swerling & Abe Burrows, Olivier 1982
Original Director Richard Eyre
Original Choreographer David Toguri
Original Designer John Gunter
Nicely-Nicely Clive Rowe
Arvide Abernathy Nicholas Lumley
General Cartwright Sharon D Clarke
Martha Nicola Sloane
Agatha Maggie Service
Sarah Brown Sophie Bould
Mission Girl Alexis Owen-Hobbs
Big Jule Stanley Townsend
Nathan Detroit Matt Cross
With
Edward Baruwa, Kevin Brewis,
James Doherty, Kate Fleetwood,
Jonathan Glew, Richard Henders,
Nick Holder, Alastair Parker,
Paul Thornley, Howard Ward,
Russell Wilcox, Duncan Wisbey
Pravda
by Howard Brenton & David Hare,
Olivier 1985
Original Director David Hare
Lambert Le Roux Ralph Fiennes
Michael Quince, MP Charles Edwards
Eaton Sylvester Jamie Parker
DPP Payne Andrew Knott
Journalists Martin Chamberlain
Nicholas Lumley
Colin Haigh
Cliveden Whicker-Baskett
Richard Henders
Mac “Whipper Wellington Iain Mitchell
No Man’s Land
Spooner Derek Jacobi
Hirst Michael Gambon
Richard Ian McKellen
Antonio Salieri Paul Scofield
A short film about Peter Hall
by Harold Pinter, Old Vic 1975
Original Director Peter Hall
Original Designer John Bury
by William Shakespeare, Lyttelton 1990
Director Richard Eyre
Designer Bob Crowley
Antony and Cleopatra
by William Shakespeare, Olivier 1987
Original Director Peter Hall
Cleopatra Judi Dench
Dolabella Rory Kinnear
20
by David Hare, Olivier 1993
Original Director Richard Eyre
Original Designer Bob Crowley
Linus Frank Nick Sampson
George Jones MP Christopher Eccleston
Andrew Buchan Paul Thornley
Gwenda Aaron Maggie Service
Trevor Avery Aaron Neil
Mary Housego Lyndsey Marshal
Lindsay Fontaine Linzi Hateley
Oliver Dix Malcolm Sinclair
Linus Frank’s PA Judith Coke
The Madness of George III
by Alan Bennett, Lyttelton 1991
Director Nicholas Hytner
Designer Mark Thompson
George III Nigel Hawthorne
Queen Charlotte Selina Cadell
Arcadia
by Tom Stoppard, Lyttelton 1993
Original Director Trevor Nunn
Original Designer Mark Thompson
Bernard Nightingale Rory Kinnear
Valentine Coverly Jonathan Bailey
Hannah Jarvis Anna Maxwell Martin
Chloe Coverly Olivia Vinall
King Lear
by William Shakespeare, Cottesloe 1997
Director Richard Eyre
Designer Bob Crowley
Lear Ian Holm
Lear’s Fool Michael Bryant
Richard II
by William Shakespeare, Cottesloe 1995
Director Deborah Warner
Designer Hildegard Bechtler
Richard Fiona Shaw
50 YEARS ON STAGE
A Little Night Music
Jerry Springer – The Opera
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by Hugh Wheeler, Olivier 1995
Original Director Sean Mathias
Music by Richard Thomas
Book & Lyrics by Stewart Lee &
Richard Thomas, Lyttelton 2003
Original Director Stewart Lee
Original Set Designer Julian Crouch
Original Costume Designer Leah Archer
Désirée Armfeldt Judi Dench
Fredrik Egerman Oliver Cotton
The Mysteries
medieval mystery plays in a version by
Tony Harrison, Cottesloe 1985, revived 1999
Original Director Bill Bryden
Original Designer William Dudley
Joseph Edward Baruwa
Mary Lyndsey Marshal
Shepherd 1 Anthony O’Donnell
Shepherd 2 Richard Ridings
Shepherd 3 Michelle Terry
Wise Man 1 Lucian Msamati
Wise Man 2 Aaron Neil
Wise Man 3 Junix Inocian
Jerry Michael Brandon
Shawntel Alison Jiear
Chucky Nick Holder
Dwight Richard Henders
Peaches Loré Lixenberg
Audience Chorus
Edward Baruwa, Sophie Bould,
Kevin Brewis, Sharon D Clarke,
Matt Cross, James Doherty,
Kate Fleetwood, Jonathan Glew,
Tiffany Graves, Linzi Hateley,
Akiya Henry, Alexis Owen Hobbs,
Alastair Parker, Maggie Service,
Nicola Sloane, Paul Thornley,
Howard Ward, Russell Wilcox,
Duncan Wisbey
Hamlet
by William Shakespeare, Lyttelton 2000
Original Director John Caird
Stuff Happens
Hamlet Simon Russell Beale
by David Hare, Olivier 2004
Original Director Nicholas Hytner
Copenhagen
by Michael Frayn, Cottesloe 1998
Original Director Michael Blakemore
Heisenberg Roger Allam
My Fair Lady
Book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner
Music by Frederick Loewe, Lyttelton 2001
Original Director Trevor Nunn
Original Designer Anthony Ward
Original Choreographer Matthew Bourne
Eliza Doolittle Rosalie Craig
Henry Higgins Alex Jennings
Colonel Pickering Malcolm Sinclair
George Bush Alex Jennings
Tony Blair Lloyd Owen
The History Boys
by Alan Bennett, Lyttelton 2004
Director Nicholas Hytner
Original Designer Bob Crowley
Rudge Philip Correia
Scripps Jamie Parker
Dakin Dominic Cooper
Posner Sacha Dhawan
Akthar Marc Elliott
Timms James Corden
Crowther Samuel Anderson
Lockwood Andrew Knott
Headmaster Clive Merrison
Irwin Stephen Campbell Moore
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
by Tennessee Williams, Lyttelton 1988
Director Howard Davies
Designer William Dudley
Brick Ian Charleson
Maggie Lindsay Duncan
Mourning Becomes Electra
by Eugene O’Neill, Lyttelton 2003
Original Director Howard Davies
Original Designer Bob Crowley
Ezra Mannon Tim Pigott-Smith
Christine Helen Mirren
Elmina’s Kitchen
by Kwame Kwei-Armah, Cottesloe 2003
Director Angus Jackson
Deli Paterson Joseph
Ashley Emmanuel Idowu
National Theatre Live
Including The Cherry Orchard
by Anton Chekhov, in a version by Andrew Upton
Director Howard Davies
Designer Bunny Christie
Ranevskaya Zoë Wanamaker
Trofimov Mark Bonnar
One Man, Two Guvnors
by Richard Bean
based on Goldoni’s The Servant of
Two Masters with songs by Grant Olding,
Lyttelton 2011
Original Director Nicholas Hytner
Original Designer Mark Thompson
Francis Henshall James Corden
London Road
Book and lyrics by Alecky Blythe
Music and lyrics by Adam Cork,
Cottesloe 2011
Original Director Rufus Norris
Original Designer Katrina Lindsay
Julie Kate Fleetwood
Alfie James Doherty
Dodge Paul Thornley
Jane Linzi Hateley
Terry Howard Ward
Helen Rosalie Craig
Gordon Duncan Wisbey
Rosemary Nicola Sloane
June Claire Moore
Ron Nick Holder
Tim Hal Fowler
Othello
by William Shakespeare, Olivier 2013,
Old Vic 1964
Othello Adrian Lester
Iago Rory Kinnear
Epilogue: The Habit of Art
by Alan Bennett, Lyttelton 2009
War Horse
based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo
adapted by Nick Stafford
in association with Handspring Puppet Company,
Olivier 2007
Songmaker John Tams
Original Directors Marianne Elliott
and Tom Morris
Original Designer Rae Smith
Song Man Tim van Eyken
Albert Jack Holden
Joey as a foal
head Laura Cubitt
heart Kate Colebrook
hind Louise Kempton
Joey
head Toby Olié
heart Thomas Wilton
hind Michael Brett
21
Kay Frances de la Tour
ASM Samuel Anderson
Director Nicholas Hytner
50 YEARS ON STAGE
Director Nicholas Hytner
Designer Mark Thompson
Lighting Designer Mark Henderson
Music for short films George Fenton
Sound Paul Arditti
Music Director Gareth Valentine
Associate Director Adam Penford
Executive Producer David Sabel
Producer Robin Hawkes
Director Mourning Becomes Electra
Howard Davies
Director London Road Rufus Norris
Associate Choreographer Guys and
Dolls Cristina Avery
Associate Choreographer My Fair Lady
Fergus Logan
Associate Director War Horse
Alex Sims
Associate Puppetry Director War Horse
Finn Caldwell
Music Director London Road
David Shrubsole
Compiled by Nicholas Hytner,
Lyn Haill, Tom Lyons,
David Sabel, Nicholas Wright,
with John Heffernan, Alex Jennings,
Lesley Manville,
Simon Russell Beale
Broadcast
Musicians
Director for Television
Tim Van Someren
Head of Events, BBC Phil Dolling
Executive Producer, BBC
Elaine Paterson
Technical Producer
Christopher C Bretnall
Keyboards 1 Andrew Vinter
Keyboards 2 Peter McCarthy
Guitar Steve Smith
Double bass/bass guitar Don Richardson
Drums Allan Cox
Percussion Martin Briggs
Piccolo/flute/alto sax Andy Findon
Flute/clarinet/alto sax Howard McGill
Clarinet/bass clarinet/baritone sax
Jay Craig
Trumpet/flugelhorn John Barclay
Trumpet/flugelhorn Andy Crowley
Trumpet/flugelhorn Toby Coles
Trombone Gordon Campbell
Horn Matt Gunner
Harp Helen Tunstall
Singers
Melanie Marshall
Stuart Matthew Price
Verity Quade
Ross Sharkey
Caroline Sheen
Michael Xavier
Production Manager Paul Handley
Company Manager Eric Lumsden
Stage Manager David Marsland
Deputy Stage Manager Anna Hill
Stage Management Fiona Bardsley,
Ian Farmery, Polly Rowe, Julia Wickham
Costume Supervisor Irene Bohan
Assisted by Hannah Trickett
Prop Supervisor Kirsten Shiell
Deputy Production Manager Marius Rønning
Project Draughting Nick Murray &
Emma Morris
Digital Art Dan Radley-Bennett &
Lawrence Rowell
Casting Wendy Spon, Charlotte Sutton,
Juliet Horsley, Charlotte Bevan
Photographer Catherine Ashmore
Orchestral Arrangements Christopher Egan
Assistant Producer Julia Nelson
Broadcast Sound Supervisor Conrad Fletcher
Broadcast Lighting Director Bernie Davies
Broadcast Production Manager Harry Guthrie
Producer National Theatre Live Emma Keith
Special thanks to the
National Theatre Archive
[email protected]
BBC Arena: The National Theatre
Producer Martin Rosenbaum
Director Adam Low
Short films
Cameraman and Editor Mike Marriage
Editor Jan Cholawo
Associate Producer James Norton
Olivier Theatre 1 & 2 November 2013
Length: about 2 hours. There is no interval
Production credits
Arcadia table & chairs built by Heron & Driver.
Extra show lighting generously donated by Richard Martin Lighting
Make up by
DETAILS OF THIS EVENING’S EVENT ARE CORRECT AT TIME OF GOING TO PRESS BUT SOME CHANGES MAY BECOME NECESSARY
22
SARA KESTELMAN
Peter Wood’s production of Congreve’s The Double Dealer was due to re-open, with some
cast changes, in the Olivier on March 22nd 1979.
However, the set for Galsworthy’s Strife was still in the Olivier following the onset of the stage
hands’ strike started on March 16th.
Instead, it was decided to use the 3rd act set of Somerset Maugham’s For Services
Rendered which had been playing in the Lyttelton.
The set was an exterior lawn outside the manor house. The Double Dealer is all interior. Peter
Wood brilliantly re-staged the entire production reversing interiors to exteriors, playing the
crucial interior bedroom scene just inside the house behind the windows. And it worked!
DAVID HARE
I used to love the IRA alerts in the mid-70s.
When we moved into the South Bank, after
the intimacy of the Old Vic, it was so huge
that when we were all evacuated onto Upper
Ground by bomb warnings, I would run
into friends I hadn’t seen for years, but who
turned out to be working somewhere in the
building.
We would all stand on the pavement, talking
companionably, sometimes for an hour, until
security let us back in.
myself and he shook my hand and said,
“Michael Elliott. I have been thinking of you”.
His sympathy made me well up, and it was
only the intervention of the BBC producer
that stopped me from dissolving into tears in
front of Sir Ralph.
MICHAEL ELLIOTT
Former Administrator of the NT
I was just a month into my new post when
80 stagehands walked out on unofficial
strike. By the weekend there was an
aggressive and threatening picket line
which closed the theatre. On the Sunday
BBC Newsnight arrived to do a story on
the strike, interviewing myself and Sir Ralph
Richardson.
I was sitting in the Olivier stalls and saw Sir
Ralph, who I had never met. I introduced
Top left: Sara Kestelman and Michael Bryant in State of Revolution, 1977. Photo Zoë Dominic
Top right: Nigel Hawthorne in The Madness of George III, 1991. Photo Donald Cooper
Bottom left: David Hare (right) and Stephen Moore in rehearsal for Plenty, 1977. Photo Jennifer Rima Beeston
23
GIUSEPPE FORTIS
Restaurants Manager 1978 – 2011
I have met the most fantastic and amazing
people spanning the world of celebrity to
royalty. Some of my most memorable:
Lord Olivier – celebrating his 80th birthday.
Sir John Gielgud – lunching with Superman,
Christopher Reeves.
Sir Ralph Richardson coming into the
restaurant during the strike of stagehands
and stating that ‘the show must go on’.
The Queen Mother – hearing her singing ‘Sit
down, you’re rocking the boat’.
The Queen – resting in the Chairman’s office,
taking her shoes off and putting her lipstick
on and asking me how I can be in two
places at the same time? I replied “Magic,
ma’am, magic.”
Stevie Wonder – impromptu concert in the
foyer.
Harold Pinter – introducing me to Sam
Mendes as the Director of the future.
Helping organize the Ian Charleson Awards
and watching all the new up-and-coming
actors and actresses.
And friendships I shared with all the
Directors and Chairmen during my time.
FRANCES CAMPBELL
I was on guard in my usher’s uniform,
Lyttelton stalls, on a discreet mission: to
open the door for Prince Charles, who was
on a low-profile visit to see The Madness of
George III.
I looked into the auditorium to make sure his
seat was ready and waiting. Oh no! a man
was already sitting in it, with his back to me.
Tactfully I leaned forward along the row and
called softly, “Excuse me, Sir, but could you
check your ticket number to see whether
you are in the correct seat?” He turned
round, smiled and said, “I beg your pardon?”
It was the Prince himself, already in place!
ROGER LOBB
former NT Box Office Manager
The very best night I ever spent in any
theatre was the first preview of Guys and
Dolls in 1982.
As it was sold out, I was on my way home
and stood at the back of the stalls to watch
the overture. Richard Eyre came over to
me and said, ‘You do know we have never
rehearsed the whole show from beginning to
end, don’t you?’
I decided to stay on in case it came to a
halt. From the first bars of the overture, the
excitement in the theatre was electifying.
After the tap-dancing finale it was clear
that the audience adored it and the critics’
opinion was irrelevant.
JULIA McKENZIE
Playing Adelaide in Guys and Dolls, I used
to throw out a garter to the audience every
night, during the number ‘Take back your
mink.’
On my very last performance as I threw out
the garter – I received a flurry of garters
back from the regulars in the front stalls – all
with names and addresses taped inside! A
unique experience!
GRAHAM BARKER
NT Development Council
Guys and Dolls was my first show
In Nineteen Eighty Two
I had to stand – but even so
That day I’ll never rue
Top left: Tony Haygarth’s favourite NT memory: The Queen meeting members of the cast of
The Tempest, 1988; Haygarth was Caliban, Michael Bryant Prospero. Photo Nobby Clark
Top right: Bob Hoskins and Ian Charleson in Guys and Dolls, 1982. Photo John Haynes
24
The best of many sights and sounds
In memory now entrenched
Has to be ‘Send in the Clowns’
Sung by Judi Dench
Ten pounds I paid – it is a fact –
For Hytner’s Henry Five:
When Adrian Lester’s brilliant act
Brought this play alive
For theatre of every kind
– now truly international –
A better place we’ll never find
Than our dear old National.
SUE BLANE
Designer: Guys and Dolls (costume), The
Good Person of Sichuan, The Relapse
My memorable moment, during the break
of the charity revival performance of Guys
and Dolls (1990) on the terrace of the Olivier,
seeing the most fabulous fireworks over the
city. Such a spectacular view.
The actual building, that I didn’t at first
appreciate, has warmed and weathered, and
houses the fabulous company that is the
focal point of the South Bank.
ROS HAIGH
We were at the opening night of Guys and
Dolls in March 1982 – our abiding memory
is of sheer joy spreading through the Olivier
as a great (perhaps the greatest…) musical
was brought to life by an amazing cast.
We remember so clearly their faces as they
realised what a huge hit they had on their
hands, as David Healy led that very first
encore of ‘Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the
Boat’. The National Theatre at its very best.
We saw the show six times.
Ros and Alan Haigh (Board member/Patrons)
LOIS SIEFF
I have had so many Great Moments at the
NT that it’s hard to make a choice.
First of all… the glorious Guys and Dolls,
directed by Richard Eyre; Barrie Rutter
belting out “I’ve got the horse right here”
and the delightful Julia McKenzie as Miss
Adelaide. And then the entire audience
falling in love with Ian Charleson.
Antony and Cleopatra with Judi Dench and
Anthony Hopkins. Did I see her falling from
a considerable height and being caught in
the arms of Hopkins? Gasp! That’s what I
remember.
Ian Holm who gave a heart-breaking
performance as King Lear, wonderfully
staged in the Cottesloe.
I cannot leave out Simon Russell Beale in
Hamlet in the Lyttelton, which I also saw at
Elsinore on a dark cold night, covered in a
blanket and with a welcome nip of Brandy.
It was complete magic… played with
intelligence, humour and great dignity.
KEVIN WILLIAMS
Original Guys and Dolls cast – Rusty Charlie
and Hot Box Waiter
To have been a part of Richard Eyre’s
groundbreaking production of Guys and
Dolls, and other subsequent productions,
was a very special moment. One that
has, I’m sure, stayed in the memory of all
involved.
One fantastic recollection is how, almost a
decade later, the original cast of Guys and
Dolls reunited to give a reprise of the show
in memory of the late Ian Charleson. After
only a few days’ rehearsal, the production
came flooding back, and it was as though
we had performed it yesterday, proving how
imprinted in our lives and memory the show
had been.
We also made some life-long friends,
showing how life and art are so closely
linked. So, may life and art continue to thrive
and supply more wonderful memories.
Julia McKenzie in Guys and Dolls, 1982. Photo John Haynes
25
HOWARD BRENTON
ALAN BENNETT
At the final dress rehearsal of Pravda in the Olivier in 1985, people
from the theatre were dotted around the auditorium. And no one
was laughing. At all. Not one laugh, from anyone. David Hare and I
looked at each other: oh God, what if it’s NOT FUNNY? Then at the
first preview great waves of laughter from the audience crashed onto
the stage to the bewilderment of the actors, who were like surfers
trying to hang on to their surfboards. It was a great night, though I
remember being almost… shocked.
I remember coming off after a performance of Down Cemetery
Road in the Cottesloe and en route for my dressing room meeting
Judi Dench and her attendants bound for the Olivier stage. “Not
many laughs to-night”, I said. “None at all with us” she replied but
since she was appearing in Antony and Cleopatra this was hardly
surprising. There was one unscheduled laugh one night, though,
as it was while she was appearing as Cleopatra that she was
made a Dame. On the evening in question Michael Bryant, playing
Enobarbus, turned upstage and muttered en passant, “Well, I
suppose a fuck’s quite out of the question now”, an extra-textual
remark, such was his never other than immaculate diction, that was
heard by the first ten rows.
CHRISTOPHER ECCLESTON
I was an usher at the NT between 1984 and 1986.
The performance I will never forget is Anthony Hopkins as Lambert
Le Roux in Pravda in the Olivier.
Hopkins seemed to charge at the part, the play and the audience.
It was not polite.
It was animalistic, explosive, unpredictable and mesmeric.
The Olivier is huge but he made it intimate, tiny.
And then within the space of a line he would remind you that yes, it
was huge, and it belonged to him.
He seemed superhuman to me.
Then I’d see him in the queue in the staff canteen having done his job.
Left: Anthony Hopkins in Pravda, 1985. Photo Nobby Clark
Right: Anthony Hopkins and Judi Dench in Antony and Cleopatra, 1987. Photo John Haynes
26
SIMON FRAULO
Lighting Operations Manager
he leaps off his stool and over the body of
our colleague to take hold of the followspot, asking, “When do I do it?” I thought
to myself “Hang on, you’re the director, this
is the perfect opportunity to get it exactly
as you want it!” Richard of course knew the
moment and did it perfectly.
But the memory that will never leave me
from that night is the emotion at the end
of the performance. Although Richard III
was written 394 years earlier, as far as the
Romanian audience were concerned it
was a replay of their lives barely 14 months
before. It was incredibly moving to witness
their reaction.
February 1991. After three days and
overnight calls, we opened Richard Eyre’s
production of Richard III to a packed house
at the National Theatre of Romania; the
dictator Ceausescu had recently been
deposed.
The technical staff for the show were using
Ceausescu’s state box as a control area,
including myself, the lighting operator, front
left; Jerry Skelton on follow-spot directly
behind me; and Richard Eyre, on a stool, at
the back.
At the end of Act I, Ian McKellen delivered
a speech lit only by a follow-spot from a
high platform which would descend, with
the spot following him downstage as the
final lines were delivered. However, on this
occasion Jerry informs me over the intercom
that he is fainting, and I can see he is
passing out through exhaustion. I grab the
front of the spot and continue to follow our
actor, who is oblivious. Now I’m caught in
a dilemma: the follow-spot has to snap out
on cue, via a switch well beyond my reach. I
am also having to operate the main lighting
control. I click my fingers to attract Richard’s
attention. As soon as he sees the situation
LINDA TOLHURST
Stage Door Supervisor
Ian McKellen came to see a Sunday matinee
of People, and before going in, left a suit
at the Stage Door and said he’d come
back after the performance. As on previous
occasions, I checked for a dressing room
that he could use afterwards. When he did
come back he said he didn’t need a room
and proceeded to change at the Stage Door,
just behind me (what a picture that would
have made on Facebook). After he’d gone,
the chap on Security asked “Who was that
man?” I said Ian McKellen. He said, what’s
he done? I told him some of the things Ian
had done but just kept getting blank looks.
I then said “Have you seen Lord of the
Rings?” As soon as I said “Gandalf” he got
very excited and said, “I’m telling the wife
that Gandalf stripped off at the Stage Door”.
LORNE CUTHBERT
I served in Finance under four Directors at
the National Theatre, starting with wonderful,
kind Peter Hall. I also sang in choirs. In
1995 during the tenure of Richard Eyre, I
was invited to form a quartet of singers to
perform in the Matthew Warchus Volpone
and in the Matthew Francis Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern Are Dead. Gary Yershon
and Mia Soteriou wrote wonderful music for
us – Gary a Venetian Requiem and Mia a
Danish divertissement, both delicious and
atmospheric, adding to the superb acting by
Michael Gambon and Simon Russell Beale.
ADRIAN SCARBOROUGH
On Wind in the Willows Nick Holder would
frequently stand naked (except for his
hedgehog wig) on the heaters at the 3rd
floor window of the dressing-room block
and do the climax of ‘Nessun Dorma’. It was
hilarious and horrific at the same time. But I
swear his final “Vincero” rivalled Pavarotti’s.
Top: Ian McKellen in Richard III, 1990. Photo John Haynes
Bottom left: Michael Gambon and Simon Russell Beale in Volpone, 1995. Photo Ivan Kyncl
Bottom right: Nick Holder in Sweeney Todd, 1993. Photo John Haynes
27
RICHARD BEAN
My strongest memory of the National is
also my first memory, which was a fist fight
between actors in the backstage Green
Room after a performance of Cinderella.
Way back in 1983.
EILEEN DISS
I’m looking at the NT posters over my desk
(one of the many nice things about working
at the NT was the gift of a poster on press
night) and feeling very nostalgic.
In 1976 I remember going with Harold Pinter,
who was directing Blithe Spirit, to look at the
Lyttelton stage, still unfinished.
I designed ten plays in the seventies and
eighties, often with Harold directing, always
grateful for the tremendous support from
workshops and props and wonderful people
like Rodger Hulley, who steered me through
it all.
The NT is still a great place to spend a
whole day, which I do quite often.
JAMES HAYES
The Oresteia 1981. All-male cast in masks.
After 25 weeks’ rehearsal, the tech. Orestes
(Greg Hicks) is about to enter the palace
to kill his mother. He walks up the steps
to the high, double doors. He enters. The
Chorus, downstage, wail disaster. A pause.
One of the giant doors opens and instead
of screams, carnage, out comes Orestes’
old wet nurse (yours truly in a mask, looking
like Sybil Thorndike). She delivers a funny
speech, remembering Orestes as a baby.
Obviously, we’ll tech this entrance a number
of times. As I am about to re-enter, I come
across two items in the wings. I open the
door, step out, place the items on the
step and go back in. The items – two milk
bottles. Couldn’t resist it.
ALAN DAVEY
Chief Executive of Arts Council England
From the Tony Harrison versions of Greek
plays to more recent triumphs like Hytner’s
Timon of Athens (the first act was a bit like
my working life) and Marianne Elliott’s The
Curious Incident… the National Theatre
has been a part of me since my early
20s. But the thing that changed me most
was an international theatre season in the
’80s – including Stein’s The Hairy Ape and
Bergman’s Hamlet which I saw twice – and
which opened my eyes to a new form of
From top, clockwise: Derek Newark and Robert Stephens in Cinderella, 1983. Photo Nobby Clark.
The Schaubühne Company from West Berlin in The Hairy Ape, visiting the Lyttelton, 1987.
Fiona Shaw in Machinal, 1993. Photo Ivan Kyncl.
Harold Pinter, Richard Johnson and Maria Aitken rehearsing Blithe Spirit, 1977 Photo John Haynes
28
discipline and rigour in theatre that rather
turned my head. Thank you for that, and for
much else since.
THELMA HOLT
When Peter Hall invited me to produce
“International 87” at the National Theatre, he
quite simply changed my life. What he didn’t
tell me, of course, was that I had to raise
all the money! The project regenerated our
interest in great theatre from overseas: our
island race was no longer an island race. It
could not have happened anywhere else in
the UK except at the NT. The staff rose to
every challenge that was thrown at them,
and I owe them the Olivier Award that I
received on their behalf.
RORY KINNEAR
It was a set of stairs for me. Selina Cadell,
in The Real Inspector Hound in 1985, fell
down the stairs smashing the banister
to pieces as she went. If I’d only seen it
once I might have thought it had been an
accident. But I saw it twice. My seven-yearold mind whirred. She broke them EVERY
NIGHT. They had to rebuild that banister
EVERY NIGHT. That was it. Strange that
the magic of theatre should be unlocked
by a staircase, but there you are. Never
underestimate the transformative power of
carpentry. Just look at War Horse...
CHARLES EDWARDS
During the closing moments of All My
Sons in the Cottesloe, those of us who
weren’t on stage were peering through the
curtains at Arthur Miller, who was watching
his play, rapt, mouthing the final words
as they were spoken, 50-odd years after
he had written them. In the Green Room
afterwards we gathered round him to soak
up whatever wisdom he could impart. In
time he finished his drink and got up to leave
with his wife, and we all one by one started
to produce posters, copies of Timebends
and programmes for him to sign, like the
starstruck kids we were.
Fiona Shaw’s final few words as she faced
execution. A truly great performance in a
truly ground-breaking production. Secondly,
the sheer joy of standing in the Lyttelton
Foyer and hearing the orchestra strike up
the Carousel Waltz. Magic.
feel genuinely artistic and often reach an
enormous and hugely enthusiastic audience.
Amonst the myriad of joyous memories I
feel proud to have brought the relatively
unknown Jude Law to a wider public in Les
Parents Terribles, and privileged to have
directed Judi Dench in A Little Night Music.
SAMUEL WEST
A memory: of rehearsals for Arcadia, and
Tom Stoppard looking for a line. It needed
to say that Thomasina couldn’t have known
about chaos theory because she didn’t have
a computer. I’d described chaos as a door
that had cracked open five or six times since
we got up on our hind legs. The line was
there, but underwater, waiting to rise.
One day Tom came in, beaming. “I’ve got it”,
he said.
“You can’t open a door till there’s a house.“
“That’s it”, I said. “That’s what I wanted to
say.” And I got to, for the very first time.
GENISTA McINTOSH
SEAN MATHIAS
Twelve years at the National – what a
privilege. So many enduring friendships and
such a rich stock of memories. Invidious
to pick and choose, but these are two
that stand out: firstly, Sophie Treadwell’s
Machinal and the gut-wrenching terror in
Working at the National was one of the
great highlights of my professional life. I was
fortunate to direct several productions under
the guidance of the brilliant Richard Eyre.
It is a haven where you can experiment,
Top, clockwise: Roy Kinnear, Edward Petherbridge and Selina Cadell in The Real Inspector Hound, 1985. Photo
John Haynes. Samuel West and Felicity Kendal in Arcadia, 1993. Photo Richard Mildenhall.
Charles Edwards in rehearsal for All My Sons, 2000. Photo Ivan Kyncl
Bottom right: Jude Law in rehearsal for Les Parents Terribles, 1994. Photo Ivan Kyncl
29
The Chorus of Women in The Oresteia, 1981. Photo Nobby Clark
30
31
part of the whole NT village was thrilling
for me. Favourite spot is the Green Room/
Canteen where, uniquely in my theatre
experience, you can rub shoulders with
every department of the building.
Happy Birthday, Nash!
IAIN MITCHELL
Late afternoon, Rehearsal Room 1,
rehearsing His Dark Materials… Outside,
the Casting Department are waiting for
me. Crisis. An actor in Democracy in the
Cottesloe has pneumonia, can’t perform.
Last four performances, sold out, no
understudies, show has to be cancelled at
great expense and huge disappointment…
unless… Will I go on with the script and
save the day? “Yes” I say….
No chance to rehearse I am told. “Oh well”
I reply. “What am I doing?” I think. Two
hours on. Standing ovation. Got away with
it. Thanks NT. Thanks Nick. Good to give
something back.
DESMOND BARRIT
It was during rehearsals for Stuff Happens.
Alex Jennings was playing the President
of the United States and I was playing
Dick Cheney. We were in the middle of
the technical rehearsals and Alex and I
were on stage. The rehearsals stopped
and we started messing about doing Carol
Channing impersonations to each other –
we had just seen her in Hello Dolly in NYC.
Suddenly there was huge laughter from
Nick Hytner and David Hare in the stalls.
We had forgotten that someone might be
looking and listening. Then Nick said “I
never thought I’d see the President and Vice
President of America doing Carol Channing
impersonations”. How embarrassed we
were.
DEBORAH FINDLAY
Mother Clap’s Molly House was a wonderful
project to be part of. Starting with a
workshop at the NT Studio in March 2001,
the play and production developed over the
year and finally opened on 4 September – a
week before the world changed. So much
energy, laughter and fizz, new scenes, new
shifts of plot coming in every day.
I remember seeing the men coming back
rather excited from trying on their gorgeous
molly frocks – dresses of silk and satin and
taffeta, gleaming and colourful. Quite a novel
experience for them as men don’t often get
to dress up in the beautiful materials and
designs that the National has to offer.
Monday 20 August, we arrived for beginning
of tech week, all raring to go, only to find
the National closed. There had been a fire
in the basement due to an electrical fault
and all the power had gone. Very frustrating,
but Nick had a great idea to keep company
spirits up. We had a song and dance
rehearsal at the Studio, then over to Joe
Allen’s for a long lunch and finally a turn on
the recently opened London Eye. We looked
down on the dark, deserted theatre all
wanting to be in there, trying out lights and
costume and set. Two days later power was
restored and we could start the last part of
getting this extraordinary play ready for its
first audience.
ISLA BLAIR
The NT is the place where I enjoy working
most. I remember my first production. An
actress became ill during the run of What
The Butler Saw and I took over the role.
I had played it before so the one week’s
rehearsal wasn’t too daunting.
On my first performance, to a packed
house – the recording of Lulu’s ‘Shout’ rang
through the auditorium as a lift containing
the actors ascended to the flies. I looked
out at the audience and said to myself, “I’m
here, I’m at the National Theatre!” The thrill
of that moment remains.
SUSAN CHINN
Nick Hytner gave me my first big break – he
cast me as “the librarian” in his film of The
History Boys! I was all set for Hollywood –
but no one called!!
TARQUIN OLIVIER
From his speech at the unveiling of the
statue of Laurence Olivier as Hamlet
PATERSON JOSEPH
Larry was true, he was magnetic, gloriously
funny, he is still a part of what makes life
worth living, as is his creation the National
Theatre. It took much more than a century
for this to happen. The third time Queen
Elizabeth the Queen Mother laid the
foundation stone, in yet another place, she
said ‘You really ought to put wheels on
this thing.’ It took his leadership to bring it
I first came across the National Theatre
when I was a drama student. I met a friend
there who just loved to sit in the foyer and
read. I will always remember that exciting
first encounter with the building; the mix of
academia and art was intoxicating for me
and I remain besotted by this theatre to this
day. My first job there was in a children’s
show in the Lyttelton called Whale. Being
From top to bottom: Conleth Hill and Roger Allam in Democracy, 2003. Photo Conrad Blakemore. The Company in rehearsal for Stuff Happens, 2004.
Photo Ivan Kyncl. George Harris and Paterson Joseph in Elmina’s Kitchen, 2003. Photo Ivan Kyncl. Danielle Tilley, Daniel Redmond, Tom McKay and
Iain Pearson in Mother Clap’s Molly House, 2001. Photo Mark Douet. Unveiling of the statue of Laurence Olivier outside the NT, 23 September 2007.
Photo Catherine Ashmore. Frances de la Tour and Stephen Campbell Moore in The History Boys, 2004. Photo Ivan Kyncl
32
to fruition. Harold Wilson implored him to
accept a life peerage but he refused until the
entire cash commitment for the National was
signed and sealed, the heroine in Cabinet
being Jenny Lee, Minister for the Arts.
Together with the generosity of the many
more than 200 contributors we have brought
about the creation of an iconic, romantic
and most exciting image which is recognized
around the world: Hamlet, holding his sword
before him like a crucifix as he climbs the
steps to meet the ghost of his father’s spirit
I chose the image of Hamlet because it
was one of the few great roles where Larry
actually used his own face. No wig, no false
nose. Of Hamlet he said it was set apart
from any other play; it is unique, because
with Hamlet you cannot cheat. You have to
give your complete self, as your own self
and no-one else’s, no role playing there, no
defence: the difference between being a
lover and a husband.
ADRIAN LESTER
Henry V in the Olivier 2003.
Jeeps were used in the production. Old, Army issue Jeeps. Not designed for comfort. As
Henry, I had to drive through the open dock doors at the very back of the Theatre, make
a sharp left onto the stage and bring the Jeep to a dead stop, centre stage in the position
needed for me to deliver the St Crispin’s Day speech. I had to do it as safely and as quickly
as possible. (There were other actors on stage and my entrance was meant to interrupt a
conversation.) The whole action took about four seconds.
One night, I get myself ready. I’m in the Jeep, I rev the engine and quickly drive the vehicle on
to the stage. I near my stop point and press the brake... Nothing happens. I hit it harder, still
nothing. I look up and see the actors try to shift out of my way, time seems to slow down. I’m
on the Olivier stage driving a Jeep toward a group of actors who are looking ever so slightly
scared. If I can’t stop, I’ll hit them and then take the Jeep off the stage and into the first three
rows of the audience.
I grab the hand brake and yank it as hard as I can. The Jeep makes a slight skid and comes
to a stop. Now I breathe. A couple of the actors are looking at me wide eyed. I can’t see the
stage in front of me any more, just the front rows of the audience as I look over the bonnet.
That night, the St Crispin’s Day speech had quite a different energy to it.
Adrian Lester in Henry V, 2003. Photo Ivan Kyncl
33
Michael Pennington
It was a dream for a century, and the
reality’s better; even the building makes
people argue, let alone the plays. With the
foundation stone down, government still
didn’t want it. Now, three theatres full almost
every night; the best theatre bookshop
in London; the Ian Charleson Award,
Platforms, Travelex, NT Live, the Studio, NT
Future, Connections, Watch This Space.
If you’ve ever worked there, you have a
welcome for life from the best stage door
team in London, eccentric dressing rooms,
work you could die for and a canteen that
could have been built for gossip.
JOHN ROGAN
My memories of the Nat are happy ones.
Except those rehearsal days when I feel
I can’t play a particular part and I’ll be
sacked. Bumping into fellow actors in the
canteen at lunchtime and catching up on
the gossip. Playing in Richard II, Cripple
of Inishmaan, Buried Child etc. I see
almost every show there and am seldom
disappointed, laughing thru One Man, Two
Guvnors and a fair amount of sobbing thru
Nick’s definitive Carousel.
So happy anniversary…
MATTHEW MARSH
The National is a large organisation in a big
building but as an actor working there I have
always felt part of a small friendly company
and that is mainly due to the superb stage
management teams.
MALCOLM SINCLAIR
I saw Olivier and his incomparable company
when I was at school. They were/are
the gold standard. I’ve done Ayckbourn,
Bennett, and Hare with the authors in
attendance, than which nothing is better.
A highlight was playing to two different
audiences in the Olivier and Lyttelton on
the same night in Ayckbourn’s House/
Garden, a unique experience, added to
which my character was the vilest man I’ve
ever been asked to play. Bliss. I should add
the important and essential fact that the
National has the best Stage Management
teams ever.
JOHN LITHGOW
In the Spring of 2009, on a one-day layover in London, I called Nick Hytner to say hello. He
immediately told me to come by his office for tea. It was the first time I’d seen Nick since he’d
taken over the National, so there was a lot to catch up on. I sat in his office, idly describing a
recent project of mine, a one-man show featuring the writings of P.G. Wodehouse and Ring
Lardner. He suddenly leaped to his feet with the same urgency you might see in a man being
attacked by an escaped tiger. “You have to do it here!” he cried. This was the moment that I
saw first-hand the brilliant, impulsive creativity that has characterized Nick’s entire tenure at
the National. Newly instituted Sunday matinees had freed up Monday nights for idiosyncratic
special events, and an idea had hit him like a thunderbolt: my show would fit the bill.
And so it was that on Monday, October 19, of the following fall I had my National debut on
the stage of the Lyttelton. I greeted a full house, puffed up by the momentous occasion. I
informed the crowd that it happened to be my 64th birthday, and I spontaneously led them
in a full-throated sing-along of ‘When I’m Sixty-Four.’ When we finished, I addressed them
again: “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back into the wings and die of happiness.”
In the last 50 years, there have been thousands of great moments on the stages of the Old
Vic, Olivier, Cottesloe, and Lyttelton. I’ve been in the audience for scores of them, and up
on stage last year for a few more during the run of The Magistrate. But for me, nothing will
match the night I turned 64 at the National. That memory is my pride and joy, and it’s all mine.
Top left: John Rogan in rehearsal for Richard II, 1995. Photo Neil Libbert. Top middle: Stage Management team for
After the Dance, 2010 (Natasha Jenkins, Jo Nield, Nik Haffenden and Alison Rankin). Photo Johan Persson.
Top right: NT Stage Door Supervisor Linda Tolhurst. Photo Philip Carter. Above right: John Lithgow in The
Magistrate, 2012. Photo Johan Persson
34
CELIA WIJETUNGA
LUCY PREBBLE
From 1982-2008, my involvement was in
developing an in-house Medical Unit, which
at first was little more than a first aid post in
a dressing room!
Establishing such a department was unique
and no one was sure how it would fit in with
the workings of a prestigious theatre. With
the support of actors and staff we became
an essential addition.
It’s been a privilege to be associated, in
a small way, with many aspects of the
National’s work to help keep the show
going. It makes me proud and happy I once
was part of this vibrant establishment. Long
may she flourish.
The night that His Girl Friday opened on the Olivier stage, John Guare and Jack O’Brien
roamed the corridors like truants trying not to get caught. “He’ll only write better bad reviews
himself” O’Brien explained as Guare paced. I was an assistant’s assistant at the time. I
arranged hotels and dinner reservations and took letters for luminaries like these, and briefly
they took refuge on my floor. “You’re going to have a play on!” Guare cried as he discovered
my dirty secret.
“Just Upstairs. At the Court”.
“Just Upstairs!”
And he sat, where he could finally be useful, and asked me – not told me – asked me about
writing.
Months later he returned to London and took the time to see that secretary’s play. Back
at my desk, he pulled up his chair and told me how he’d liked it. He didn’t patronise. He
spoke to me as a writer. “What would have happened,” he leaned back, “What would have
happened, if where you’d ended, you’d begun?” And one degree from the great John Guare,
on the fourth floor of the theatre I’d return to, that’s what I did.
Left: Nurses and Patients in A Matter of Life and Death, 2007. Photo Steve Tanner
Right: Billie Piper and Jonjo O’Neill in The Effect, 2012. Photo Ellie Kurttz
35
ANGUS MacKECHNIE
Age 3: waiting for dad outside the Old Vic Stage Door
Age 4: watching one minute of Laurence Olivier as Shylock
from the back of the stalls
Age 12: watching mum go on as understudy for Emma in
Betrayal in the Lyttelton
Age 14: doing my homework in the Green Room
Age 17: tearing tickets in the Cottesloe
Age 19: ending my first relationship in the Lyttelton foyer
Age 21: getting birthday bumps during the ushers’ briefing
Age 22: being promoted to Duty House Manager
Age 24: getting part-time job in Platforms Department
Age 30: having birthday drinks in the Green Room
Age 31: taking over as Manager of Platforms
Age 34: creating NT2000, the NT millennium project
Age 36: scattering dad’s ashes into the Thames outside the
Stage Door
Age 37: receiving the Rayne Award for services to the National
Age 39: getting extremely drunk with Lauren Bacall in the
Green Room
Age 40: programming the Watch This Space Festival for the
first time
Age 41: co-directing with Nick H the celebration of Laurence
Olivier’s centenary
Age 45: having my Civil Partnership ceremony on the roof of
the National
Age 47: working on the NT’s 50th celebrations.
Watch This Space Festival 2012. Photo Steve Stills
36
a ferret handler. The ferret shot straight up
inside the leg of my trousers, which was
faintly disturbing, but seemed to be a good
sign as I was playing Chief Weasel. A day
or two later, I was standing next to Jane
during the morning tea break, beside the
huge hot water urn that hissed and steamed
all day, as she asked Michael Bryant who
was playing Badger, if he had watched the
badger video she had got for him, and if
he’d had any movement tips from it. “Yes”,
he replied, “I discovered that Badgers walk
just like I do!”
DAVID BAMBER
I shall always remember my excitement
at meeting Michael Bryant for the first
time, in rehearsal for Bartholomew Fair in
which I played John Littlewit. I had grown
up watching him on TV, particularly in
John Hopkins’ Talking to a Stranger with
Judi Dench. I went on to work with him in
Hamlet, Racing Demon and Wind in the
Willows and every outing was a masterclass
to a young(ish) actor. Michael taught me that
once your “character” was up and running
you really had to let the audience do their
share of the work whereas I was inclined
to attempt a triple back summersault every
time I appeared, just to remind them who I
was... to be on stage with Michael and hear
the delighted audience response is a deeply
treasured memory.
ADRIAN SCARBOROUGH
There was a hot dog stand outside the
Dolittle Theatre on the corner of Hollywood
and Vine, where Michael Bryant could be
found each evening before the show, with a
Chilli Cheese Dog in his hand.
JUDITH COKE
There can’t be many people for whom the canteen at the National
Theatre is the most romantic place on earth, but it is for me, because
it was there that I met my husband, the great and irreplaceable
Michael Bryant. We performed in nearly 30 plays at the NT during
our 25 years together, and our whole marriage took place within
its walls. He may be dead, but – as he requested – a portion of his
ashes rests in each of the three theatres, and so he still presides over
the great company that he led with such distinction for half its life. He
is a benign ghost, and I am so proud, both of him and of the NT.
TIM McMULLAN
In 1990 I was rehearsing The Wind in the Willows, and the wonderful
Jane Gibson was movement director. We all had homework to do
with the animals we were playing, and once spent a short while with
Top left: Michael Bryant in Racing Demon, 1993. Photo John Haynes
Bottom right: The company of the 1994 Racing Demon tour to LA, taken by Adrian
Scarborough’s wife who was five months pregnant with their first child.
37
KATE MOSSE
Board Member
In the Theatre at Night.
In the silent concrete corners and walkways,
hang the echoes. Words and music and
movement. The air is still, hushed, yet
holds within it a lifetime of voices heard,
footsteps caught, the crack of paper and
shoe-leather and coin. Seamed into the
fabric of the building is the imprint of every
actor, every technician and designer – lights,
sounds, shapes – every director, dresser,
stage manager, prompt. The glasses of
wine, the twist of each sweet-wrapper, the
programmes passed from hand to hand.
Over time, memories fade and distort, they
sharpen and shift, lose their power. But all
those who have passed this way have left
their mark. Have helped create this national
theatre, a breathing, always-changing,
space brought to vivid life by the people in
it. And which now, at fifty years, stands as
testament to who we are and who we
might be.
TIM CLARK
Board Member
Throughout its existence, the name of
the National Theatre has described its
activities. It is the leading UK theatre. With
three theatres on the South Bank and
the broadest of repertoires, it could, with
that domestic position, also claim a wider
reputation. Now – with productions, tours
and NT Live on most continents and more
than half of its audience outside its South
Bank home – it is indisputably the leading
theatre in the world with an audience to
match. It is a joy to be a part of this vibrant
and inclusive leader of world culture.
Huge congratulations on this momentous
anniversary to the leadership, the staff and
the performers on its stages.
The NT at Night. Photo Paul Greenleaf
38
NICK STARR
Executive Director
I was a schoolboy in south east London
when the NT was being built on the South
Bank. I got infected by the scale of the
ambition: not one theatre but three, and
everything under the same roof. What a
thrilling and ambitious conception for how
the theatre could be. My friends and I used
it as our place to meet in London. We
interviewed actors for our school magazine,
queued for day seats, stood at the back for
No Man’s Land, watched Illuminatus for a
whole day. My particular frustration was that
I couldn’t see into the workings: I jumped
up to see into the workshops through those
slit windows at the back. My apprenticeship
was a long one: first the press office, then
the directors’ office, then returning to run it
with Nick. There’s a genius to the place, by
which of course I mean the people. It will be
a terrible wrench to leave next year. Some
institutions are objects of respect, some of
love. The NT is, quite self-evidently, both.
MARIA MILLER
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and
Sport, Minister for Women and Equalities
The National Theatre, as we all know it, has
been part of the country’s cultural heart for
all my life. Its fantastic reputation around the
world for excellence and innovation is fully
justified. It’s hard to pick out just one special
memory; I will always remember my first visit
to the National as a student to see Guys and
Dolls in 1982 and the first time I took my
daughter in 2004 to see His Dark Materials.
The National is a very special place.
KAREN HILL
Quite simply – I love the National Theatre.
What we see on the stages is the result of
an extraordinarily creative, innovative and
intelligent group of people working as a team.
I always come away from meetings at the
National feeling much the same as I do when
I have watched one of the NT productions –
uplifted and energised and above all, hugely
proud that we have such an institution in this
country.
LLOYD DORFMAN
My involvement with the National began with a dinner party conversation in 2003, which
resulted in the Travelex Cheap Tickets. But, it very nearly did not happen.
I had stopped the discussion when the Iraq War loomed ominously. Six weeks later, however,
on a Friday afternoon, Nick rang to say he still had no sponsor but, with the War ending,
might I change my mind? He also said he needed to print the tickets and programmes next
week, and I was his last call. Monday, we agreed the deal and, on Tuesday, I saw him at the
National. We were both delighted. I said to him “it just goes to show that those last minute
Friday afternoon phone calls, with nothing to lose, can sometimes be worth making”!
CHRISTOPHER HOGG
Former Chairman of the NT Board
To Chair the NT – and with three of the five
great Directors it has had so far – was one
of the most rewarding experiences of my
whole working life. The NT is inspirational
and the immense range of talent it has
been able to command has brought about
great deeds of all kinds. In its 50 years the
NT has achieved world class standards. To
maintain these with continuing momentum
will be an enormous challenge; but I believe
it can achieve another wonderful 50 years
and more, given the depth and vigour of the
roots it has established.
exterior. Now we need to make the building,
and its welcome, consistent with the quality
and accessibility of what appears on its
stages. A year from now I hope we’ll have
done just that, giving audiences what Nick
likes to call The Big Hello, and equipping us
for the next great 50 years.
PETER BAZALGETTE
Chair of the Arts Council
I could write about the extraordinary run of
Shakespeare productions, of the definitive
collaborations between Hytner and Russell
Beale or Hytner and Bennett. But let me take
just one production that encapsulates how
the NT inspires us. The Curious Incident of
the Dog in the Night-Time at the Cottesloe
was extraordinarily original and deeply
touching. And then I caught it in the cinema
as part of NT Live – a different but equally
valid experience which brought the work to
tens of thousands more of us. Great art for
everyone, as we say at the Arts Council.
JOHN MAKINSON
Chairman of the NT Board
The National Theatre is a delicious liqueur
chocolate, hard on the outside but irresistible
in the middle. All the creative triumphs of the
past fifty years have been achieved despite
that impressive but forbidding Lasdun
Top left: The first Travelex season: Alex Jennings, Nicholas Hytner, Adrian Lester,
Zoë Wanamaker, Lloyd Dorfman, Frances Barber and Kenneth Branagh.
Bottom right: Exterior of the National Theatre. Photo Paul Greenleaf
39
Support the next 50 years
of world-class theatre
As we celebrate 50 years of the NT, we know it’s equally
important to look forward to the next 50 years. NT Future
is an £80 million project that is set to transform your
National Theatre.
NT Future will allow us to offer a much warmer welcome to
our audiences, nurture new generations of theatre-makers
and enhance our digital facilities, helping us bring more of
our work to people across the world.
Our plans include refurbished foyer spaces, increased
seating, an additional riverside café and public access to
view our new backstage craft workshops from the Sherling
High-Level Walkway. The refurbishment of the Cottesloe
Theatre is already underway and it will reopen as the Dorfman
Theatre in 2014 along with the Clore Learning Centre, which
will allow us to produce a full and exciting programme of
workshops and courses for all ages.
The transformation is happening now, but we still need to
raise an additional £8.5 million to complete the project.
If you would like to support your theatre,
please visit our website and find out more:
nationaltheatre.org.uk/ntfuture
020 7452 3916
[email protected]
40
South Bank
London SE1 9PX
nationaltheatre.org.uk
Chairman of the NT Board John Makinson
Director Nicholas Hytner
Executive Director Nick Starr
Chief Operating Officer Lisa Burger
Registered charity no: 224223
Programme compiled and edited by Lyn Haill
Programme designed by Mark Fisher
Printed and donated by Cantate Communications