The Stage

Hytner appeals for ‘offensive’ plays to challenge National’s liberal audience

Published Wednesday 14 November 2007 at 12:55 by Lalayn Baluch

National Theatre artistic director Nicholas Hytner has issued a call for “offensive” plays challenging liberal values that he could stage at the flagship South Bank venue.

The statement follows comments made last year when Hytner said he would like to see a “good, mischievous, right-wing play”, which he could put on at the NT.

Speaking at the Soho Theatre this month, Hytner suggested that truly progressive work should challenge the beliefs of regular theatre-going audiences.

He said: “I would seriously like to feel that somebody will deliver me a play that will really get up your noses. I would love to deliver a play that ended up in a position that, for instance, was highly sceptical about abortion rights. I would like to see a play about the white working class communities that were completely displaced by waves of immigration. These are the offensive plays we’re not doing.

“Our jobs are to put on plays that we think are interesting, stimulating, and well written. If they have to risk causing offence, that’s something we have to acknowledge. I wouldn’t think it is our job to [stage] work simply because it is provocative.”

Speaking alongside Hytner at the event on censorship at the Soho Theatre, playwright Stewart Lee warned that venues across the UK are wary of radical shows and instead succumb to conservative programming in order to be commercially viable.

Lee’s own show Jerry Springer - the Opera was plagued by protests from evangelical group Christian Voice last year. He believes a tour of his controversial work would now be impossible as theatre managers would be too concerned about the consequences of hosting it, and warned that writers now have to “cut their cloth accordingly”.

Also a stand-up comedian, Lee added that there is already a trend in the comedy scene to speak against political correctness.

He added: “The last taboos are to attack liberal values. But the funny thing is when people do that, liberals in the audience may not agree with it, but they applaud and say well done.”