Abstract

The Royal National Theatre is one of the UK's largest performing arts venues and has entertained audiences at its home on London’s South Bank since 1976. However, the inclusion of the word ‘national’ it its title, coupled with the abundance of public funding it receives, implies a reach that extends beyond the capital’s middleclass demographic and into the nation. Further, is the presence of a building an “exhausted ideological construct” and ultimately restrictive to a company aiming to represent ‘the people’. With this in mind, this research poster presents the difficulties faced by national arts institutions and argues that they would benefit from a more inclusive and accessible approach to theatre making.