The National Theatre, future plans

<cough> Emma Rice.

It is true - check the website. Every performance is either sold out or has one or two seats left. No idea why it would be half full last night - some weirdness about press nights?


Also he will serve out the  length of his contract has he has had a couple of flops, as has every other AD of the National, but is generally quite succesful.

All these people going on about the "failing National Theatre" sound increasingly like Donald Trump going on about the "failing New York Times"

It was practically sold out last Saturday so unless it's been comped heavily then I'm not buying it's not selling well at least for the National run

That's very impressive and persuasive- though measuring the distance in yards does date you rather.

As a side note: anybody knows where the hell the new season is going to be announced? Things used to be more structural and in control.. I mean by this time each year the press-conference'd be called and we'd know already, what the upcoming year brings..

Yep, sometime next month for an announcement prob upto April/May.

Not on-sale, but the next two plays were announced months ago: The Great Wave and John.

I went to Oslo yesterday afternoon and Mosquitoes in the evening, both greeted with passionate applause. Follies was on next door. No sign of a theatre in crisis there.

One thing's for sure, diatribes against the the AD of both the National Theatre and the RSC is a way to get yourself noticed on a messageboard. This is, after all, a place where people arrive to share their love of what they have seen and any nitpicking usually emerges out of that rather than their blazing straight in with such an agenda.

Primarily, the mindset of anyone with opinions about the arts is best served by remembering one thing - 'this is not all about you', or maybe more accurately - 'okay, this is all about you, but it's you that are the variable, not the people/organisation that you are trying to claim are the problem'.

A little housekeeping -

A People. Places and Things, Cleansed, The Flick, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Amadeus, Hedda Gabler, Angels in America, Follies.

B Katie Mitchell, Marianne Elliot, David Hare, Ivo Van Hove, Robert Icke, Duncan MacMillan, Caryl Churchill (It really is too early, given scheduling, but these are where we are now, as opposed to not needing a crystal ball for Hytner)

(As for these - Jerry Springer The Opera (okay but more for shock value), History Boys (tick), Dark Matrrials (breakneck adaptation which did not serve the novels well, although staging was excellent), Elmina's Kitchen (gave Kwei Armah a leg up but hardly earth shattering), The Pillowman (good play, why didn't he go back to the NT?), Complicite Measure for Measure (not Complicite's best and blown out of the water by Hill Gibbins' brilliant Young Vic version), Stuff Happens (really? Dull, dull, dull, not even convincingly acted with wobbly impressions abounding)

There are a multitude of theatres in London, across the country, across the world and they each appeal to different people because they are run by different people. As such, you see that the ebb and flow of an organisation is mostly about the opinion of individual patrons and how much they chime or differ with that person/organisation. So it's purely personal opinion and where and how it chimes. I've been to the Donmar so few times recently as it's just not for me. Then again I've been to the Royal Court way more since Cooke left. Others may well feel the opposite, so just go to where you want and, some time, that will change. Just leave it a few years and everything is different again.

For the record, you appear to like Goold/Icke, the way that British theatre has adapted to the European director led approach. People who know me here may recall  that I am similarly a fan of that theatre. In the end it's not for everyone though, other people deserve their tastes to be reflected as well, it really is not all about me.

The problem is that Norris is running the NT as if it IS all about himself - he's programming only things that appeal to him and people like him. Before he took the job he announced that he wasn't familiar with the classical repertoire and that he much preferred the writer of a play to be in the rehearsal room. Result: He doesn't programme anything from the classical repertoire other than a few very familiar plays and he programmes a large number of new plays. It is also clear he is in thrall to the USA so there's a disproportionate number of plays and star actors from there.

We know, however, that Hytner programmed plays that he personally disliked to get a more diverse and inclusive repertoire - that made him a better AD than Norris in my view. 

I think Norris' programming is very self-centred in a way only Nunn's was before - whether it is justified by having the same financial success of the latter we'll see.