Lyn Gardner says the National Theatre needs to be generous in providing for all artists and theatergoers, even in the country's farthest-flung corners.
Back in 2001, at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the great, late Ken Campbell, the writer, director and improviser, laid out his vision for how he would run the National Theatre, complete with daily entertainment for children and family audiences, magicians in the bar, Ken Dodd and huskies on the main stage (not at the same time) and Jim Carrey playing Hamlet. Apart from much increased provision for children and family audiences, not a great deal of what Campbell proposed has come to pass, and perhaps we should all be truly thankful that Nicholas Hytner, the theatre's current artistic director, has saved us from Jim Carrey's great Dane.
But Campbell's view bears some consideration, as do other alternative views of what our NT can and might be and mean, as the NT faces up to its next 50 years with an artistic director designate, Rufus Norris, who takes over in April 2015. Unlike the other shortlist candidates, Norris is very much an NT insider who plenty of people saw as a shoo-in. He may not have run the building yet, but he is steeped in the NT's existing culture.
There are testing times ahead. Barely had the celebratory 50th anniversary bunting been stored, and the strains of Judi Dench singing Send in the Clowns faded, than questions started to be raised more loudly than ever about the remit of the National, the place it occupies in theatre ecology, and how it can more truly live up to its name. The writer Sam Potter has pointed to the under-representation of women at the NT, and this weekend the critic Fiona Mountford expressed doubts—despite the success of NT Live—about whether the NT was fulfilling its remit by reaching all the parts of the country, not merely audiences within easy reach of London's culturally rich South Bank.
Back in 2001, at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the great, late Ken Campbell, the writer, director and improviser, laid out his vision for how he would run the National Theatre, complete with daily entertainment for children and family audiences, magicians in the bar, Ken Dodd and huskies on the main stage (not at the same time) and Jim Carrey playing Hamlet. Apart from much increased provision for children and family audiences, not a great deal of what Campbell proposed has come to pass, and perhaps we should all be truly thankful that Nicholas Hytner, the theatre's current artistic director, has saved us from Jim Carrey's great Dane.
But Campbell's view bears some consideration, as do other alternative views of what our NT can and might be and mean, as the NT faces up to its next 50 years with an artistic director designate, Rufus Norris, who takes over in April 2015. Unlike the other shortlist candidates, Norris is very much an NT insider who plenty of people saw as a shoo-in. He may not have run the building yet, but he is steeped in the NT's existing culture.
There are testing times ahead. Barely had the celebratory 50th anniversary bunting been stored, and the strains of Judi Dench singing Send in the Clowns faded, than questions started to be raised more loudly than ever about the remit of the National, the place it occupies in theatre ecology, and how it can more truly live up to its name. The writer Sam Potter has pointed to the under-representation of women at the NT, and this weekend the critic Fiona Mountford expressed doubts—despite the success of NT Live—about whether the NT was fulfilling its remit by reaching all the parts of the country, not merely audiences within easy reach of London's culturally rich South Bank.