The National Theatre General Thread

Do we know why he's announced his leaving in .. something approx. to 21 months: why the Spring of 2025 - to do with the lead-in to a new season?

Just a contract thing. He was appointed on a 5 year contract from April 2015. This was then extended for a further 5 years. He's positioning it as if it is his decision to leave but in fact he has no choice, it's the end of his contract and there's no reason they would extend it again. 

It was in Billington's piece about Norris stepping down as being for his tenure so 2015 to present I suppose.

Looking at the job description, they say they are looking for someone to aim for 90% sold capacity

Don't most departing ADs etc give a years or so notice?

Are they going to give the new AD control over ticket prices then ? Because that’s one of the key factors in achieving that (or not). In my view that is an inappropriate target for an AD - for a start no previous AD has achieved it and its a recipe for bland risk-averse programming with no challenging new plays and no non-mainstream unfamiliar revivals. It’s an interesting requirement though, I wonder if some of the more politically committed candidates would be put off by it.

I don't get this obsession people have with the classics, surely it's not a bad thing that the Dorfman is used for new work.

Obsession seems an unduly negative word.  Passionate interest is what I feel.  I love the classics because they are good:  entertaining, gripping, funny,  moving, profound, thought-provoking and, in many cases, worth seeing several times.  I imagine many of us on this forum like paintings, novels, music, buildings, films too that are more than 10 or 20 (or 100) years old.  If I love an art form, I'm interested in its great past too.  I imagine a lot of us on this forum feel that way.

If I felt a desire to be a bit more controversial, I would also argue that Shakespeare's relation to the theatre is different from the greatest practitioners of other art forms to theirs in that he is out on his own both in terms of quality and quantity in a way that doesn't happen with other art forms.  In the novel you have Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Proust, Balzac, Dickens, Austen, Eliot, Mann, perhaps one or two others who are at the top.  In painting you have Michelangelo, Leonardo, Titian, Rembrandt, Velasquez, Picasso all there.  In music Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner all in their way equally extraordinary.  But there isn't really anyone up there with Shakespeare:  the Greeks, Chekhov, Ibsen, Racine, Goethe, Schiller are all great, but to me they are all on a level below Shakespeare - which is why he's done so often in Germany, France, Japan and elsewhere.  It's not only sheer artistic greatness, but the sheer number of first-rate works which is unique in literature.  There are five great plays by Chekhov, a handful from most of the others, 10 or so by Ibsen. No one compares to Shakespeare.  

I'm in favour of new work being in the Dorfman, but I think it should be used for classics too, and not just the less well-known ones.

You're right that it's all a question of balance.  I would disagree with your implication that only the over-40s are interested in the classics, though.  I was interested in the classics as a young man and I have taken 100s of sixth-formers to plays by Shakespeare, Sophocles, Euripides, Moliere, Pinter and Brecht - and they loved them.

And no one is telling anyone to sod off anywhere or that we don't need new writing at the National.

He hasn’t cut out the classics to pander to a younger audience though. He’s told us exactly why he has - it’s so he can meet the NT’s self-imposed targets for gender balance amongst writers, actors and creatives generally.

I’m not sure that the classics don’t appeal to an under-40 audience anyway. If ROH put on only operas by living composers would the place be full of young people ?

Has the NT ever staged a play by Aphra Behn? Yes there are not many female playwrights of by gone times but it is a shame she is ignored.

If they are looking for classics written by women then why not explore some other early 20th century writers like Sarah Glaspel, Lillian Hellman or others who are forgotten. Come on Norris if you have your agenda you should at least do some googling.