Proud winner: Sir Richard Eyre accepts the Best Director award
(Picture: David Benett/Getty Images)Fomer National Theatre boss Richard Eyre has written his first original play 25 years after leaving the Southbank institution.
The work, called The Snail House, is about the family life of a fictional government medical advisor and was written during lockdown.
Eyre, who led the National for a decade until 1997, said: “I have written a play before, it was performed at Hampstead Theatre Club in 1968, and my writing was described by Charles Spencer who then worked for the Evening Standard, as ‘promising’.
“It was an adaptation of a novel The Ha-Ha. This is my first original play and set in the present day - it’s something that I have been thinking about for some time, but never had the time to write. The pandemic afforded me that time and I am delighted that it is premiering back at Hampstead Theatre.”
It is one of four new plays that will be performed at the Hampstead Theatre this Autumn including Mary by Rona Munro.
Described as a “political thriller” it is inspired by the life of 16th century Scottish diplomat James Melville who served Mary, Queen of Scots and is the fourth instalment in her cycle of James Plays which won an Evening Standard Theatre Award in 2014.
Also announced are Ravenscourt about the mental health system and Blackout Songs about a pair of alcoholics who fall off the wagon.
Roxana Silbert, Artistic Director of Hampstead Theatre, said: “I am delighted to announce four new plays, two of them by first time writers: one by Georgina Burns, a play written during the pandemic on our new writers’ programme and one by esteemed director Richard Eyre.
“Both have come to playwriting later in life and we are proud to have supported them on their new journeys. Alongside them, two world premieres: one by Rona Munro - part of the James Cycle - which through six plays tackle the history of Scotland; and Joe White whose beautiful, shape-shifting play about love, art and alcohol, is another Hampstead commission.”
