NT Summer/Autumn season

Just as we're sick and tired of you endlessly spouting 'witty' comebacks to all and sundry - get a life.

Just reading Rufus Norris' interview about the new season and in particular the improvised play with old actors. He starts "We're all obsessed with getting a younger audience. but .,.." This highlights quite a common view: If you want an old audience put on a play with old people in it. If you want a teenage audience put on a play with teenagers in it. If you want a British film to succeed in America put an American character in it. This strikes me as if it might be cargo cult thinking.

The problem is they don't really want young audiences, the majority of young people have no money, but as people live longer these young people MIGHT become rich old retirees who hold the theatre dear. I think theatre is doing a lot to make it financially accessible but until the young are rich they won't really commit to them.

Agree with Jan. It was ever thus. I am over 50 now and yet when i go to the RSC or the NT now i look around smd feel the youngest one there! I bought both my children to the theatre at an early age and they still go, indeed my son is now at Drama School.
However i am extremely conscious that we are the exception,

I hope they get some younger peeps in but it is a bit like the Irish joke: I wouldn't start from here.
The building is forbidding and hard to navigate which is off putting. Open it up. Go on, I dare you. Kids need to go from school and not just once but as a matter of course. Some liaison between exam boards and the programme choosers so that for example a studio prod of say Arcadia will be popping along and full blown productions of other perennials will pop up too. Teachers brought in and adored and nurtured with all kinds of programmes. Price reductions for kids even for serious stuff for example a St Joan or someat that Grandma can take young teenage grandkids to without selling her home or her body. Ok, Cumberbatch at least once every couple of years until the next 'one' comes along. Cheap but ok food. Open the foyers to music again. Put on productions of kids! Def get an audience of devoted parents but as well will demystify and also intrigue children. Bring ' em in from the provinces.
Just tinkering really and all very doable.

With vast swathes of the stalls and circle priced over £50 they will never reduce their average age much, or have a more diverse audience.

I'm 19, and find NT no more unwelcoming than any other theatre - which I suppose might be the problem. I see that NT does half price for under 16s, perhaps extending this to under 25s would be a good shout.

BFI Southbank next door has an excellent scheme where under 25s can show up to a screening 45 mins before start time and get in for £3. Although NT doing something similar does ring a bell, seeing a play and seeing a film are very different experiences; rarely does one book to see a film months in advance.

Travelex £20 tickets are decent, but I've always found myself stumbling upon them by chance. Although I wouldn't go as far as the Donmar's FREE student tickets, NT definitely have to do more to encourage younger patrons. When I queued for day tickets for Red Barn (which you would suppose at £15 would be a magnet for any student theatregoers), I was the only one queuing under 40, and only with a handful of other people under 60! I've never felt uncomfortable sitting in a more 'mature' audience but not many of my friends have the desire for theatre that I have - a discounted easy-access student scheme would definitely convince them to join me some time for the right price.

Have to admit I have spent a couple of productive days working on my laptop in the National foyers. And I'm in my 40s

Iv been going to national since I was 11 and on my own since 13. I used to love the concrete monstrosity! I bought a collection of from the cotersloe bookstore when I was 14 coz of the two guys on the front snogging (pre internet days init) and used to love turning up and catching a tour and matinee

The problem with offering cheap tickets to under 18s is it's really only Londoners and people leaving within in an hour or so that can really take advantage.

I reckon the national should do tours of schools especially up north and in wales and Scotland. I remember the Royal exchange used to tour its shows (albeit not a schools) and that was some of my first experiences of theatre. Surely just get em bitten by the bug at a young age and if the mountain can't go to Madrid as the saying doesn't go

I love the National and hang out there all the time, but there are moves they've made that make it less welcoming. More eateries means that more of the space is given over to the eateries - I used to love sitting in the corner by the Lyttelton cloakroom (now the bookshop), but all the tables and chairs there now are for the use of people who've bought food from the café in that corner. There used to be more comfy chairs; there's a whole long padded bench on the Olivier cloakroom level that's just not there now, along with the sofa(s?) on the Olivier circle level. And taking away the stage with the live music has not only reduced the variety of art available in the building, it's made the entire ground floor level feel like a canteen or an airport waiting room. Not to mention their new thing of approaching people with laptops after a certain time and chasing them away if they're not also there to see a show (mind you, has anyone witnessed this happening, or are they hoping the threat of it will reduce the problem so they don't have to actually do anything?). It doesn't feel like their goal was opening up the space, it feels like their goal was monetising the space. Just because I can still find a few discreet corners (no one will ever stop me getting a power nap in an undisclosed location after I've been dayseating) doesn't mean it's still as welcoming as it was.

The Dorfman toilets are INCREDIBLY superior to the Cottesloe toilets though, there is that at least.