Cottesloe Theatre
The Cottesloe - named after Lord Cottesloe, chairman of the South Bank Board (the body responsible for the construction of the National) - is the smallest, the barest, the most potentially flexible and (for some people) the most potentially influential of the National houses.
| Cottesloe Theatre photo Mike Smallcombe |
It is a dark-walled rectangular room, which can hold up to 300 people, but may readily be rearranged to take fewer. On three sides of the room two tiers of pillared galleries look down on an adjustable floor-space which has no fixed seating or staging. This National cockpit may be used for classical staging, for the latest experimental theatre, or for practically anything in between. You can stage an event at one end with or without a proscenium, in a corner, or in the centre. You can clear the floor of seats, or group the audience close in around a central happening. Everything is open to change except the galleries, which are reminiscent of the inn-yards that preceded Shakespeare's stages.
The seating in the Cottesloe is not quite as comfortable as in the Olivier and Lyttelton theatres, being portable and with no armrests. The seats in the galleries have restricted views.
Due to the flexibility of the staging, the seating is different for almost every different production, and as such, we do not have seating plans available online.
