‘You become addicted to pressure’: Rufus Norris on success, stress and the National Theatre’s survival
He has triumphed over controversies, the ‘devastation’ of Covid and 100-hour weeks. As Norris leaves the biggest job in British theatre, he reveals his final season – and his plans to take up carpentry and design kayaks
July 2024
‘The arts stop us killing each other’: stars tell Labour how to rescue Britain’s downtrodden culture
‘It’s the talent pipeline’: inside the National Theatre’s hit-making hothouse
March 2024
Nye review – Michael Sheen looks back at the difficult birth of the NHS
Sheen stars as Aneurin Bevan in Tim Price’s drama, unfolding in flashbacks from a hospital bed
October 2023
After 60 years, when will the biggest job in UK theatre go to a woman? Why not now?
Arifa Akbar
As it turns 60, the National Theatre must balance past and present
Michael Billington
June 2023
Safe pair of hands or time for a shakeup: who’s going to get the biggest job in UK theatre?
Rufus Norris has made the National Theatre more diverse – on both sides of the curtain
Michael Billington
Play about NHS creator Nye Bevan is among 12 new National Theatre plays
Rufus Norris to step down as National Theatre leader in spring 2025
December 2022
The week in theatre: Orlando; Hex review – an elemental Emma Corrin, and a bit of a beast at the National
‘We put Disney in the bin’: Victoria Hamilton-Barritt on being theatre’s top Christmas villain
She starred in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights while eight months pregnant and played Cinderella’s stepmother in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s abruptly closed musical. Now Hamilton-Barritt has bounced back as a tormented ogress in Hex
June 2022
How do you make a lavish spectacle sustainable? Theatre’s radical green agenda
A meeting of minds at the National Theatre showed ways to stage drama along environmentally sound lines. But is everyone on board?
May 2022
National Theatre to stage The Crucible with Erin Doherty and Brendan Cowell
Revival of Arthur Miller’s allegory is part of a new season featuring The Boy With Two Hearts and a 40-week tour of Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane
March 2022
Small Island review – enthralling Windrush drama makes stylish return
A superb new cast show this story of love, war and racial prejudice has earned its place in the National Theatre pantheon
January 2022
Culture in peril
Hex: National Theatre cancels opening night of Covid-cursed musical
‘Blighted’ by pandemic, Rufus Norris’s festive production will end current run without a press night but return in November
August 2021
Autumn arts preview 2021
Hamlet, Cabaret and a fistful of Romeos: the best theatre, comedy and dance of autumn 2021
Cush Jumbo tackles the troubled prince, Jessie Buckley and Eddie Redmayne head for 30s Berlin, while standup favourites and dance spectaculars burst back on the stage
June 2021
National Theatre commits to more plays from outside London
Reopening plans include a musical based on Sleeping Beauty and a play telling the story of Gandhi’s killer
March 2021
Michael Sheen to star in Under Milk Wood at the National Theatre
Reconfigured Olivier theatre will show Dylan Thomas classic in June reopening with Jack Thorne play set for Dorfman stage
