The Stage

War Horse made £13.9 million for the National Theatre last year, NT’s annual report reveals

Published Monday 3 October 2011 at 16:05 by Natalie Woolman

Without the financial success of War Horse and One Man, Two Guvnors, the National Theatre would have struggled to stage shows including The Kitchen, Emperor and Galilean, London Road and cinema venture NT Live, the National’s executive director Nick Starr has revealed.

Starr’s comments followed the publication of the National’s annual report 2010/11, which reveals War Horse took £13.9 million in the West End during the financial year, up from £13.2 million in 2009/10. The show achieved 97% average attendance across the year, and has been seen by more than 1.4 million people in London since it opened in 2007.

Meanwhile, NT director Nicholas Hytner revealed that his team hope that One Man, Two Guvnors will open on Broadway in April 2012 with its current cast and intend to re-cast the show for a further run in the West End. The financial results of One Man, Two Guvnors do not appear in the report because its run began in May. However, Hytner said that it had an “astonishing advance” of £2 million for its run at the Adelphi Theatre later this year.

Describing what the National’s programme would look like without the boost of these two productions, Starr said: “We wouldn’t have done Emperor and Galilean, we may not have done The Kitchen, we wouldn’t have continued London Road in the Cottesloe and moved Double Feature into the Paintframe, they are very obvious things.”

Hytner added that the organisation may have also “had trouble kick-starting NT Live” without the financial cushion. Hytner said that, with Starr as executive director, the venue is now good at “the exploitation of our successes” and said that the venue has made no cutbacks as a direct result of the reduction to its subsidy from Arts Council England, which will drop from £19.6 million in 2010/11 to £18.4 million in 2014/15 – a cut of 14.9% in real terms.

In his introduction to the annual report, Hytner says: “At the National, large-scale commercial successes like War Horse (and our more recent One Man, Two Guvnors) are made possible through the kind of commissioning and development processes for which subsidy is essential. But they are merely part of a repertoire that embraces cutting-edge work that allows experimental artists to thrive, and serious investigations of the classical canon.”

The NT’s financial review shows that its total income was £70.6 million in 2010/11, up from £64.5 million in 2009/10 and 48% of which was generated from box office receipts. Its total expenditure was £64.1 million last year. Attendance at the south bank theatres averaged 90%.

The surplus from War Horse has been set aside for NT Future, the organisation’s redevelopment project. The report states that this is now in its detailed design phase and that more than £30 million has been raised towards its £70 million target.