Nicholas Hytner and Nick Starr on the first Travelex £10 Season
Nicholas Hytner and Nick Starr on the first Travelex £10 Season.
Chaired by Chris Campbell, Olivier Theatre, 21 November 2003
CC Whose idea was the £10 Season, and when did that idea come?
NH One of the things about running this place is that you always forget whose idea things were, because there are so many of us chipping in. But I think I got obsessed by tickets at knock-down prices almost from the moment I was asked to do the job. And we started to think about how to do it almost a year before I started. It was mainly a feeling that ticket prices in real terms have gone up a hell of a lot since 1963 when the National was started and 1976 when we moved here. It didn't seem to be rocket science to attribute what felt to us like a narrowing of the audience base to increased ticket prices. So it felt worth a try to see what would happen if we made a dramatic intervention into ticket prices. At the same time I thought that this theatre [the Olivier] in particular needed its whole aesthetic seeing to. One thing that we do very well is the full works, and another is an appeal to the audience's imagination. This is an amphitheatre, not a proscenium arch theatre which sits up and begs for scenery. An amphitheatre is historically a place that doesn't need scenery, a place where the audience fills in the gaps, a community of people. So I thought why don't we try either doing nothing or lots. And we were able, out of that nothing, to make up some of the cost of reducing ticket prices. I think that, by and large, directors and designers have responded to the challenge of the limited budgets we have given them. We were able also to schedule more performances, and then we got the Travelex sponsorship. It was not just to do with reducing ticket prices, it was about how do we work in the Olivier.
CC Did you choose Henry V to kick it off because the Chorus more or less says what you've just said?
NH It was a help – “Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts, On your imaginary forces work” – certainly it felt like I was giving myself the easiest job of the four directors for the season.
CC Does that mean that there is a type of play that suits this season? Do you see anything in common between the four plays of the season?
NH I think there's a type of play that suits the Olivier Theatre. Simon Callow puts it very succinctly in his short history of the National Theatre (on sale at the Bookshop!) where he points out that it is in a way a perverse decision to design as the centrepiece of a National Theatre a kind of auditorium which has been obsolete for twenty five hundred years. The only plays that were written for an amphitheatre are the Greek tragedies and a few Roman plays. But at the time this place was conceived, there was a heroic style of acting in vogue, spearheaded by Laurence Olivier himself, which was very suited to this kind of space. That kind of acting is no longer in vogue and I'm absolutely sure that if we could magically transport an acting company from the early 1960s into this theatre now, even those of you who remember those performances with fantastic affection and admiration would find it old fashioned.That's what happens to acting styles. Acting styles change, audience tastes change, so a place like this becomes an even bigger challenge. It's still, however, absolutely wonderfully suited to the great, heroic performance, and also to the big public play. I don't think the £10 Season makes much of a difference to the challenges posed by the Olivier Theatre. We're looking for plays that provide big, charismatic actors with an opportunity to take an audience with them. Quite obviously this doesn't mean they have to shout all the time, because one of my fondest memories of the season is how Adrian Lester as Henry V was able to pull 1100 people every night, in his soliloquy at the beginning of the second half, into something very quiet and intricate. Because he is who he is, he was able to fill the theatre with that. But also you can fill this theatre with battles, even with a studio play like Edmond. But there was no way we would have done Edmond if we hadn't had the actor to fill the part. There are some absolutely marvellous actors who could do Edmond terribly well, but not do it here. Kenneth Branagh obviously can.
CC Do you mean they wouldn't sell the seats?
NH No, no. They wouldn't be able to take 1100 people with them. Maybe 300.
CC It seems that the rationale behind the season was for artistic and financial and social reasons – as you said at the beginning: broadening the audience. Do you think it's been successful on all these three fronts?
NH I hope so. The truth is you're never that happy because you always want to do more, go further, do it better. I'm proud of all four productions. I think in different ways they all offered something really positive and interesting. We're obviously very happy with audience figures; the season has been full, almost all of the time, which is remarkable, particularly over the summer when for a long time it has been frankly hard to shift tickets. We also know that a hell of a lot of people who have come, have come for the first time, which is good too. That's not because in any way we prefer people who come for the first time to those who come for the twentieth time. On the contrary, we want the people who come for the first time to come again and again, and become regulars. But it's just good business practice constantly to be looking for new people to become regular customers because, as I've said before, the trouble with people is that they die, or they move out of London, or they just stop coming to the theatre, and unless you've brought in other people, your audience gets smaller and smaller.
CC I think also one thing that's been changed is the way people come to the theatre. People that do, have come to see things they've never heard of because, after all, it's a tenner. Or they've brought other people with them because suddenly it's an affordable way for three or four people to go out. Could we talk a bit about the bare stage. There's been some comment about restricted budgets for designers. Is it an artistic or a financial decision?
NH It's both. As I said, how we deal with this big place is either to do the works or to appeal to the imagination. The figures are just a guide, but we've spent on each of these four shows £60,000 for the physical production – sets, costumes, props, lighting, all that stuff. Now that's a good deal less than half, about a third, of what we would have to spend to do a full scale production here. Aesthetically my hunch was that we were increasingly failing to be able, because things get more expensive, to do attractive things for even three times £60,000. More importantly we are asking directors and designers to produce things that are very light on their feet so we can change them over very quickly, because another thing we were able to do over this period was an extra 28 performances since we don't have to go dark for technical rehearsals. We can do a tech for the new show, clear the scenery away at 5pm and put the scenery in for the show that's already in the rep, and still go up at 7.30pm. So financially part of the contribution has been made by restricting the budget. But it's not peanuts. If you said to Michael Grandage, who runs the Donmar, you can only spend £60,000 on a Donmar show, that would be more than he would ever want to spend.
CC Are Travelex happy?
NS They're completely delighted because this has kind of raised the bar in terms of arts sponsorship. There is some kind of web device which allows a sponsor to get a media check, and e-mails come flooding in to Travelex to say “You have been name-checked ten times today.” They were first-time arts sponsors, they had done sports (they are sponsors of the rugby world cup). Nick wrote a letter to the critics saying “We've got year one, we think we might get years two and three”, and so the critics have been very diligently writing “Travelex £10 season” in their reviews, and that's had the most amazing effect. It's a million pounds over three years, and that's what makes the difference. The real financial motor is that we had got used to this huge theatre being about 60 or 70% full. It really is a virtuous thing – you can balance it out that if the centre stalls are £25, the other two thirds are £10, and the theatre is completely full, then we make the same amount of money as we would have made when the centre stalls are £34. That just is something that not only works financially but also completely connects with what the National Theatre is about. We're about large numbers of people having a good time; that's what it was built for.
CC I'm tempted to ask why it hasn't been done before?
NS Because it's a risk.
CC Because we might still be 70% full and then we'd be in trouble?
NS Yes. And I think at some point in the 80s, people quite understandably lost their nerve. Arts funding had declined, and year-on-year the attritional budgeting process meant that people would say “Well you could get that price for seats, people will pay it in the West End”, so our seat prices have been a little basket attached to the West End. West End ticket prices went up by something like 34% in five years, probably because it's very difficult to disprove the notion that people will pay money for tickets. It required some decisive detachment from what was otherwise a steady upward progress.
NH It has been conventional wisdom that people will pay for a show they want to see, and it remains true for a smash hit. Every time a commercial producer produces a show, that producer has to think this is the big smash hit, the one that takes the town. If you're running a National Theatre and putting on sixteen or seventeen shows a year, that's not the mentality you should be living by. I don't think it's my job to think every time, this is the smash hit show that will take the town, because if that's what you're looking for, if that's your sole criterion, it's kind of a rule of the theatre that most of the time it doesn't happen. There are only ever a couple of talk-of-the-town shows at any one time. So, say you're really lucky, and out of sixteen shows, four of them achieve talk-of-the-town status, the other twelve are nothing because you haven't actually defined what you want from them besides talk-of-the-town. If what you're trying to do is construct a repertoire which investigates all kinds of ways of looking at the nation, of making theatre, of different relationships between the past and the present, of new artists – if what you want is an audience that will come with you on a permanent, continuing investigation of the nation, of the theatre, you can't assume that every show is going to be the kind of show for which people will pay anything. A friend of a friend said he'd just been to London and the only ticket he could get for Democracy was £500, of which we will be getting £25. Now it's great that there are tickets on sale in some of the grander London hotels for £500 for Democracy, but it's no good going to that end of the market if you're the National Theatre. I think it was wrong to go with that convention that people will pay anything if they want to see the show. If they don't want to see the show, you can't give tickets away. We all know that, too. But for the kind of repertoire we do, we have a responsibility to the tax-paying public, and particularly to that great band of tax-payers who have never qualified for a reduction here. The kids do really well here, as do senior citizens. But for the great band in the middle, who are paying for the kids and senior citizens' reductions, it's time to give something back to them, to make it possible for them to come more often, and for us to do the kind of repertoire we want to do. And it's a piece of good fortune, from the National Theatre's point of view, that, at a time when we have taken a deliberate decision to try not to constantly be pushing ticket prices up, that at this very time the West End has in some respects taken leave of its senses. But it will only be good for us if we keep our top price even for our conventional shows at £34 or £35; if they're charging £55 in the West End, then we're the national theatre again.
CC I didn't know Travelex were first time arts sponsors. How did we find them? Did they come to you?
NS It was through a contact, a member of our Development Council, who put us in touch with Lloyd Dorfman, the chief executive of Travelex. Breda Daly, who runs our Development Department, was in discussion with them. Then the war happened, and understandably they didn't feel they should be spending from what would be seen as their advertising budget on sponsorship.
NH Remember that they are a foreign exchange company and so when the war happened nobody was travelling, nobody was at the airports, so their business suffered. Then the war ended, but we were still feeling very gloomy about the sponsorship, so one Friday afternoon I picked up the phone and asked to speak to Lloyd Dorfman. I got put through and he said “You've caught me at a very good time. Let me think about it. I'll get back to you tomorrow.” And he called back the following day and said “Yes, OK, that's fine.”
CC Are there going to be more Travelex £10 seasons, and are you in a position to tell us what's going to be in it next year?
NH Yes, there is going to be another season next year of the same length – six to seven months. The first two plays will be Cyrano de Bergerac, with Howard Davies directing Stephen Rea as Cyrano, and then Measure for Measure, which Simon McBurney will direct in a collaboration with Theatre de Complicite, Simon's company. And we are closing in on play three and play four. It looks as if, very excitingly, they will be new plays by writers whose work, I promise you, you will want to see.
Audience member:
From what you have learnt artistically and commercially, will there be changes in the other half of the year?
NH We're about to see if the big-spending part of this equation works, because His Dark Materials, which is nearing the end of rehearsals, is costing a fortune. You're going to see a hell of a lot of it on the stage, it's going to be, I hope, spectacular. There are lots and lots of things which we should and can do, and one of those things is to display what all the wonderful artists and craftsmen who work here can do when they're really pushed. We think we've learned that the £10 Season formula works. And we kind of know that over the years when the National has got one of its big, ambitious, extravagant projects right, people love them. I'm making no guarantees about His Dark Materials...
Pricing is something that we give a hell of a lot of thought to. At one time I thought there were too many different prices; let's make it simple. We just want to make sure that every time we do a show, we know what we're charging for it and we know to whom. With His Dark Materials, one pointer was that older kids could get involved. We've spent a lot of money – a lot of our subsidy as well as the money we earn – on making all tickets, every performance, anywhere in the house £12 if you're under 18. That is a big hit for us, but we decided that's what we're here for. Our Marketing Director Chris Harper is very good at this, at forecasting what kind of things we might expect, at judging how we might best fulfil the remit we set ourselves. So one of the things we thought was, His Dark Materials is two plays, a big ask for an audience. We're asking them to come twice. (And if you've not got your tickets, book quickly because they're going unbelievably fast). We knew that people who knew the books would want to see them, but I thought we can't ask a family of four, the core unit for ticket pricing – two parents, two teenagers – we can't ask them to come twice for more than it would cost them to see The Lion King or one of the big musicals once. So that's what we worked to, and that felt OK. We juggle with it the whole time.
Audience member:
You did well in the Olivier, but did it take audience away from the other two auditoriums?
NH I think the opposite. The Cottesloe has been completely full, and by the way we took prices down in the Cottesloe too. It's now £25, £15, £10, it houses new plays, and it's been full all year. The first two, Scenes from the Big Picture and Elmina's Kitchen, the previews weren't full, word travelled, and it's been buzzy in the Cottesloe ever since. All the Lyttelton shows have done well. It took time for word on Three Sisters to travel, but when it did, it did terribly well. That seemed to me our greatest challenge, in a way. A famous play by Chekhov – why is that £34 in the Lyttelton when we're doing a famous play by Shakespeare for £25 and £10 in here? We did cheat a bit on Three SistersThree Sisters at £10 as well, and that helped it along. What we're after is doing interesting, challenging work, filling the house every night, and staying solvent, which is different from what a West End producer is after. They're after returning money to their investors.
Audience member:
Like many others, I am disillusioned with West End ticket prices. I'm very grateful to the season because I've been able to bring friends. Do you have a personal favourite from the season? Which do you think worked best?
NH I couldn't possibly say. I thought they all had something different to offer. Three of them were unequivocal public and critical hits. Tales from the Vienna Woods divided opinion sharply and that is something you have to do sometimes. If you never divide opinion, you're never going out on the edge. That was the kind of show that could have played 20% or 30% here before, but this was doing 75%, which was another vindication of the season.
Audience member:
While you're getting all the young people in with reductions, don't forget those of us at the other end who have supported you for years.
NH You see, we really don't. We are immensely proud of and committed to the reductions we give to young people and those we give to senior citizens. What we're after is returning something to the people who subsidise those, and making sure that we get more people who, when they are senior citizens, will have been coming here for a long time. We'll never ever attack the reductions we give to young people and senior citizens.
Audience member:
Can I just say how wonderful it is to have the front three rows back again.
NH Thank you. We took the stage back to what is called “the Peter Hall stage”, in the Olivier Theatre, but most importantly somewhere on this stage is the Michael Bryant spot, which is the spot from which you can command the whole house and always be heard.
Audience member
I've very much enjoyed the Platforms here, especially the two hour afternoon sessions. Can we look forward to more?
NH I'm sure you can, and this is a good opportunity for me to say that the Platform programme has absolutely nothing to do with me at all, but is all the responsibility of one person, Angus MacKechnie. He is one of my most creative and inspirational colleagues, and I'm sure if he's heard that you're turned on by the two-hour Platforms he'll already be jotting down ideas for new ones.
CC When I was asked to chair a two-hour Platform one afternoon on Theatre Translation, I really thought we might struggle, but in the end we had to be thrown out, people didn't want to leave. And also visiting writers who have taken part, particularly from abroad, have been astounded that there is such interest in hearing about their work.
Audience member
Do you know how successful you are in social and age-breakdown terms? I went to see something at the Royal Court recently and looking around the audience there were lots of really cool people there. I don't see that here very often. Jerry Springer, maybe.
NH Well maybe you've not been coming to the shows where that happens. Elmina's Kitchen and Scenes from the Big Picture... We're happy for anyone to come who wants to come. For the £10 Season we know, because we've done audience research, but quite honestly there are questions I'm not prepared to have researchers stand outside this theatre asking, as you're coming out: what class do you think you are? what is your race? are you circumcised?
Audience member
I didn't say that, I'm just asking how you get young folk into the theatre.
NH Well they come. I'm not criticising you. I'm just saying there is a limit to what we can know, and therefore we're relying a great deal on our intuition. It's a problem I have with certain official expectations. With Elmina's Kitchen, I would say (but it was from observation only), we were playing to an audience that was, most nights, half black. But I don't have a statistic. Here's something scary: We can find out so much about you from your credit card. We know, because some smart person can tell us from your post code, what your income is. I would say that Edmond, Henry V, Elmina, Jerry Springer, and, funnily enough Three Sisters got noticeably diverse audiences with a lot of kids. This makes me really happy. We're the National Theatre, we have to appeal to everybody; the fantasy is that every show appeals to everybody, but it doesn't. His Girl Friday and Jumpers appealed to our more traditional audience, but even then we kept being surprised by, just from the look of them, how many people you wouldn't expect were coming. I'd like to think that at any one time, across the repertoire of six or seven plays, we were grabbing a big cross section of potential audience.
Audience member
Are you getting your increased audience from people who don't normally go to the theatre, or from the West End?
NS Well, my friends in the West End say we've taken their audience, but there's no real way of knowing. The only thing we can observe is that over many years there's been a phenomenon where productions which have run successfully here for a long time and come to the end of their life in audience terms, transfer to the West End and go on to play for years. There is clearly an audience for the West End and for the National and they overlap to a certain extent.
NH I go to Waterstone's in Camden on a Sunday, and there seem to be so many people buying interesting, challenging, demanding books, and I think Have they all tried theatre? I think there's a much bigger potential book-buying, intelligent-movie-going, gallery-visiting audience that this season we are starting to get in. I bet a lot of people coming to see His Dark Materials are coming to the theatre because they know and love those books. I speak as the person who ten odd years ago did a production of The Wind in the Willows in this theatre, a book loved by people's parents, grand-parents, and great-grand-parents. His Dark Materials is going to be seen by kids who have told their parents about the book. I can't wait to see who comes to that.
© National Theatre
Nicholas Hytner is Director of the National Theatre, Nick Starr is its Executive Director, and Christopher Campbell is Senior Reader in the Literary Department
The plays in the first Travelex £10 Season were: Shakespeare's Henry V, His Girl Friday adapted by John Guare from The Front Page by Hecht & MacArthur, Edmond by David Mamet and Tales from the Vienna Woods by Odon von Horvath in a new version by David Harrower
