Robin Lough was the camera director for Phèdre: his expertise was crucial to the success of NT Live. The admirable cast of Phèdre included Dominic Cooper, Stanley Townsend, Ruth Negga and John Shrapnel. Our touring programme continued to thrive. Most in demand were the big shows: The History Boys, War Horse, Curious Incident and One Man, Two Guvnors. Among many others that went on the road were The Habit of Art, People, Hamlet, Nicholas Wright’s Travelling Light, Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman, Conor McPherson’s The Seafarer, Katie Mitchell’s Waves and Mike Leigh’s Grief. The project manager of NT Future redevelopment was Paul Jozefowski. He and Rob Barnard know every corner of the building. The stars of the weekly company meeting were often Christine Paul, the canteen manager; Angus MacKechnie, head of Platforms; and Michael Straughan, head of box office, who was succeeded by Aidan O’Rourke.
As I kept no diary, I asked a lot of old friends to reminisce. I want to thank Sam Barnett, Richard Bean, Alan Bennett, Lisa Burger, Oli Chris, Dominic Cooper, Bob Crowley, Frances de la Tour, Marianne Elliott, Nadia Fall, Deborah Findlay, Alex Jennings, Jonathan Kent, Lesley Manville, Tom Morris, Vicki Mortimer, Adam Penford, Ben Power, Lucy Prebble, Mark Ravenhill, Wendy Spon, Russell Tovey, Nick Wright, and above all Niamh Dilworth, who not only organised my life for the best part of twelve years, but remembered most of it too.
When I left the National, I was presented with a complete bound edition of Lyn Haill’s peerless programmes. They were a priceless resource. So were the books she commissioned in the National Theatre at Work series, particularly Jonathan Croall’s on Mother Clap’s Molly House; Robert Butler’s on His Dark Materials and The Alchemist; Bella Merlin’s on Henry IV; and Mervyn Millar’s on War Horse. Erin Lee spent days digging material that I didn’t know existed out of the National Theatre Archive. To jog my memory, I sometimes searched for old reviews online, where the theatre criticism algorithm favours Michael Billington, Susannah Clapp, Charles Spencer and Paul Taylor. Most useful of all was Daniel Rosenthal’s vast and indispensable book, The National Theatre Story. I am very happy to salute all of them.
I am indebted to all the playwrights whose work I have quoted, and acknowledge with gratitude those from whose plays I have taken long extracts: Richard Bean, Alan Bennett, David Hare and Tom Stoppard.
Simon Russell Beale, Peter Holland, Lucinda Morrison and Steve Ochoa read my early drafts: my heartfelt thanks to them for their advice. So, of course, did Nick Starr, without whom there would have been nothing to write about. I hope it’s obvious how much I owe him. Stephen Grosz made some invaluable suggestions. I could not be more fortunate in my agents, Natasha Fairweather and Anthony Jones, or in my publishers Michal Shavit and Bea Hemming. Anthony suggested the title; they all gave me much better notes than I often give in my day job.
A large part of this book was written in a crumbling French farmhouse uncannily like Leonato’s in Much Ado About Nothing. Many of its protagonists drank rosé on the terrace while I wrote, and gave me some of my best material. Writing about the things we’ve done together was almost as much fun as doing them. I am immensely grateful to them, and I’m looking forward to lots more.
A Note About the Author
Nicholas Hytner is a theater director and producer. He was director of London’s National Theatre from 2003 to 2015 and cofounded the London Theatre Company, whose first theater, The Bridge, opened in October 2017.
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Balancing Acts Page 32