X-Nico

3 unusual facts about Royal National Theatre


David Montagu, 4th Baron Swaythling

He was a bridge player, an art collector and a supporter of the Royal National Theatre.

Lola Young, Baroness Young of Hornsey

Other public appointments have included English Heritage’s Blue Plaques Committee, membership of the board of the Royal National Theatre, the South Bank Centre, and the board of Governors of Middlesex University, chairing the Arts Council’s Cultural Diversity Panel, and membership of the board of Resource, the Council of Museums, Archives and Libraries, and a commissioner on the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts.

The Golden Ticket

The Golden Ticket was originally conceived as a project for London’s Royal National Theatre, but early workshops initiated by the composer and librettist revealed the challenges of producing an opera under the auspices of a theater company that did not regularly employ classically trained singers.


Adrian Bower

Bower's theatre credits include Andy in Brassed Off Royal National Theatre, Heracles in Simon Armitage's adaptation of Euripides classic, Mr Heracles West Yorkshire Playhouse, Steve In Celebration Chichester, Dan in Hotel in Amsterdam Donmar Warehouse, he played opposite John Simm in Elling at the Trafalgar Studios, Lovbourg in Hedda Gate Theatre.

Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton

Numerous prestigious companies touring shows to the Arena during this period included Kneehigh Theatre, Royal National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, People Show, Tara Arts, Shared Experience, Forced Entertainment, Volcano, Hull Truck Theatre, Gay Sweatshop, Cheek by Jowl, Market Theatre (Johannesburg), Trestle Theatre, Complicite, Kathakali Dance, Black Theatre Co-operative, Red Shift Theatre, ATC Theatre, Snarling Beasties and The Right Size.

Ayub Khan-Din

In 2007 Rafta, Rafta..., a play Kahn-Din wrote, opened at the Lyttelton stage of the Royal National Theatre in London.

Benet Hytner

Hytner is father of Nicholas Hytner, the Director of the National Theatre in London, Jenny Hytner-Marriott, Director of The Paw Seasons, Richard Hytner and James Hytner.

Bijan Sheibani

Since then Sheibani has directed two more productions at the National: Greenland and Tirso de Molina's Damned by Despair in a new version by Frank McGuinness.

Bruce Purchase

Born in Thames, New Zealand, he won a scholarship to study acting in England, training at RADA, and went on to become a founding actor-member of Laurence Olivier's National Theatre.

Christine McKenna

Upon graduating, she appeared in productions for the National Theatre and in the West End of London, including Stephen Sondheim´s A Little Night Music with Jean Simmons and Hermione Gingold, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Great Expectations, and played "Polly" in The Boy Friend with Glynis Johns, "Sally Bowles" in Cabaret, and "Moll" in Moll Flanders.

Clare Clifford

She attended Selwyn Independent School for Girls in Matson, Gloucester, then studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama and appeared on stage at the Oxford Playhouse and the National Theatre.

Clare Holman

She played Harper in the Royal National Theatre's production of Tony Kushner's Angels in America in November 1993.

Conor McPherson

In September 2006, to great critical acclaim, McPherson made his National Theatre debut as both author and director with The Seafarer at the Cottesloe auditorium, starring Karl Johnson and Jim Norton, with Ron Cook as their poker-playing, Mephistophelean guest.

Cruella de Ville

Phil has written a book (Memories of the Irish-Israeli War) and a play (Together Against Him, which was awarded a bursary by The Arts Council of Great Britain) under the name Phil O'Brien (O'Brien is the Munizers' mother's maiden name) and has served as dramaturge for the Royal National Theatre.

Damien Molony

After the filming of series 4 of Being Human, Molony starred as Motl and Nate in director Nicholas Hytner’s Travelling Light at the National Theatre.

Deborah Norton

She has taken part in productions of Six Degrees of Separation, Thérèse Raquin, The School for Scandal, Hotel Paradiso, and others in locations as diverse as the Royal Court, Bristol Old Vic, the Nottingham Playhouse, the National Theatre and others.

Elaine Tan

She played the lead role of Liat in Sir Trevor Nunn's production of South Pacific at the Royal National Theatre in London, and sang 'Happy Talk' as a duet with the character of Bloody Mary which features on the musical soundtrack recorded at Abbey Road Studios.

Harry Hepple

He has appeared on stage in theatres across the UK including the Young Vic, Live Theatre Newcastle, the Traverse Theatre, the Royal National Theatre, the Bush and the Royal Court Theatre.

Hilton McRae

He performed the role of Mr Stopnick in the UK premiere of Caroline, or Change at the National Theatre, which won the Best Musical Award from the London newspaper the Evening Standard.

John Heilpern

He has also worked as Peter Hall’s assistant director on Tamburlaine at the National Theatre of Great Britain in 1976, and when he went to live in New York in 1980, he subsequently worked on Broadway as a librettist for Michael Bennett (of A Chorus Line).

Lark Rise to Candleford

The television scriptwriter and playwright Keith Dewhurst adapted Thompson's trilogy into two plays, Lark Rise and Candleford, which were performed in the Cottesloe auditorium of London's National Theatre in 1978–9.

Lauren O'Neil

Her stage debut came at the Royal National Theatre where she played Bianca in Marianne Elliot's revival of Women Beware Women.

Lucy Speed

By the age of eight she was acting on stage at London's National Theatre in Neap Tide, a controversial play about lesbianism and women's oppression.

Marion Bailey

Bailey has worked extensively in British theatre, including Chichester, Bristol Old Vic, the West Yorkshire Playhouse, London's West End, the Royal Court, the National Theatre, the Old Vic, the Arts Theatre, Hampstead, the Tricycle Theatre and the company Shared Experience with whom she received a TMA nomination as Best Supporting Performance for her role in Kindertransport (2007).

Mark Lawson

He has written several radio plays for the network, including St Graham and St Evelyn (2003) on the friendship between the Catholic novelists Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh and The Third Soldier Holds His Thighs (2005) on Mary Whitehouse's unsuccessful litigation against the National Theatre production of Howard Brenton's play The Romans in Britain.

Matt Charman

His second and third plays, The Five Wives of Maurice Pinder and The Observer both premiered at the London's Royal National Theatre, where he has also served as Writer in Residence - he also collaborated with Moira Buffini, Penelope Skinner and Jack Thorne on Greenland (2011) at that venue.

Maurice Flanagan

Kenneth Tynan, one of the competition judges, invited Flanagan to write for the National Theatre, where Tynan was literary advisor.

Nicholas Bailey

Bailey has also performed in the theatre, with roles including Robert Mugabe's security officer Gabriel in Breakfast with Mugabe, and The Duke of Burgundy in Richard Eyre's production of King Lear at the National Theatre, London.

Olwen Fouéré

As a free-lance actress, Fouéré's has worked with the Abbey Theatre, the Gate Theatre, the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Panasonic Globe Theatre

Guest companies and artists have included the British Royal National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, Ingmar Bergman, Peter Brook, Barry Kyle and Robert Lepage, as well as such Kabuki stars as Bando Tamasaburo (Lady Macbeth), and Ichikawa Somegoro (Kabuki Hamlet).

Paul Jesson

He has played leading roles at the National Theatre and the RSC and won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role 1986 for his role in The Normal Heart at The Royal Court.

Phoebe Nicholls

Most recently, she played the conniving art critic Rivera in the Royal National Theatre production of the Howard Barker drama, Scenes from an Execution.

Sarah Daniels

Her plays have appeared at other venues including the National Theatre, the Battersea Arts Centre, the Crucible, Sheffield and Chicken Shed.

Scenes from an Execution

While a fringe production was staged in 2007 at the Hackney Empire, the play was later revived in 2012 by the National Theatre on its Lyttelton stage.

Simon Gleeson

Simon Gleeson (born 13 January 1977) is an Australian actor in the United Kingdom who has performed in plays at The Royal National Theatre and in the West End of London.

Sinan Savaskan

Sinan Savaskan was the Music Director and Composer for Oedipus Rex, University of Cambridge’s triennial production performed entirely in classical Greek at Performances at Arts Theatre, Cambridge, 11–16 October 2004; featuring a distinguished production team including Director Annie Castledine and Royal National Theatre’s Designer Stephen Brimson-Lewis.

The Advertisement

The Advertisement was given its world premiere at the Theatre Royal in Brighton, Great Britain, in a production by the National Theatre, and subsequently transferred to London's Old Vic Theatre, in 1968.

The City Waites

As a composer he creates all the group's musical arrangements and has also written scores for the Royal National Theatre, Shakespeare's Globe, the Royal Shakespeare Company and several historical feature films.

The Good Hope

The Good Hope, a play written by Herman Heijermans in 1901, was translated in a new version for the Royal National Theatre, which relocated the action to the Yorkshire fishing community of Whitby in 1900, by Lee Hall, writer of the award-winning Billy Elliot and Spoonface Steinberg.

The Shape of the Table

It was first staged at the National Theatre, London, UK on 8 November 1990 - the first anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall - in a production directed by Jenny Killick.

Thomas Coram

The book was adapted into a play by Helen Edmundson, which had its world premiere at the Royal National Theatre in London in November 2005 and recently had a brief run on Broadway.

Timothy Speyer

In early 2012 he is to make his debut at The National Theatre on London's South Bank, appearing as Sir Charles Marlow in She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith.

Troy Glasgow

In 2008 Troy originated the role of Tobias Rich in the world premiere of Harper Regan at the National Theatre by British playwright Simon Stephens alongside Lesley Sharp as Harper Regan.

Trumpets and Drums

The production strongly influenced the English director William Gaskill's reinterpretation of Farquhar's original play for the National Theatre.


see also

Denis Quilley

In the 1970s he appeared with the Royal National Theatre in Macbeth, Hamlet, The Tempest and Long Day's Journey into Night, alongside Laurence Olivier in the last.

John Hoye

OTC also won two major awards for new works - The LWT Plays on Stage Award in 1988 for The Harlot’s curse written by Rodney Archer and Powell Jones; and the Guinness/Royal National Theatre Festival Award for Roberto Calvi is Alive and Well written by Roy Smiles.

Raymond Llewellyn

Other work includes Mr Pugh in the 1963 BBC Radio version of Under Milk Wood with Richard Burton; 1984-5 in New York/Washington and three weeks in Los Angeles with 'Cyrano' & Much Ado About Nothing starring Derek Jacobi, as well as ten weeks in Los Angeles with the Royal National Theatre Production of Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People starring Ian McKellen.

Show of Strength Theatre Company

The European premiere of Australian playwright Nick Enright's Good Works won the Guinness/Royal National Theatre Pub Theatre Award.

Southbank Centre

The architect of the Royal National Theatre (Denys Lasdun) also designed the University of East Anglia in Norwich, which has a similar design, with pedestrians and traffic separated by elevated walkways.

Warren Carlyle

He started as a dancer, after taking dance lessons, but then was chosen by Susan Stroman to be associate choreographer for the West End Royal National Theatre production of Oklahoma! (1998), and she later chose him to assist her on the Broadway musical The Producers.