Rufus Norris has announced he is to quit British theatre’s top job — leaving as artistic director and chief executive of the National Theatre in 2025 and describing his stint in charge as “the most challenging time in our history”.
The director, who steered the Southbank institution through the Covid crisis, brought stars including Chiwetel Ejiofor, Olivia Colman, Anne-Marie Duff and Cate Blanchett to its stage after taking over in 2015.
Announcing a new season of shows that include Michael Sheen playing the left-wing icon and founding father of the NHS Aneurin Bevan and David Oyelowo in the title role of Coriolanus, he told reporters on Thursday that he would step down in spring 2025.
He said his time in charge had seen 10 Culture Secretaries come and five Prime Ministers come and go as well as the impact of Brexit and the pandemic.
“It’s a blessed relief to see how we are emerging intact after what has been no doubt the most challenging time in our history,” he added.
Norris said his “successor or successors” would be identified by the end of the year and it was “imperative” that “the search is wide and inclusive”.
He added that he would have “no direct input” into who his successor would be and “our job is to make sure the board has a wide choice, has a difficult choice”.
Norris said his time had seen a commitment to new writing and young talent and that it had also seen the theatre “moving the dial on the issue of historic underrepresentation”.
He said the climate crisis had become “a key focus” for the theatre and committed it to convening “the largest ever meeting of directors and artistic directors from across the British Isles” to see how the industry can become more environmentally friendly.
He added he was setting up a pan-London scheme to work with other theatres including the Young Vic and Royal Court to make the capital a leading light in making the industry carbon neutral with a fleet of electric vehicles to transport props and costumes.
Nye, billed as a “Welsh fantasia”, will be directed by Norris and run from next February and chart the life of the former Welsh coalminer who founded the NHS in post-war Britain.
He said the show would examine the “centrality” of the NHS to “British life”.
Also announced is an adaptation of The House of Bernarda Alba, described as “a new play” inspired by the original work of Spanish playwright Federico Garcia Lorca with Harriet Walter in the title role as the ruthless matriarch who dominates family life.
Lindsay Duncan will star on stage in a revival of Dodie Smith’s 1960s play Dear Octopus described as “a tender and touching portrayal of a family on the eve of World War Two.”
PJ Harvey is working on an adaptation of the Charles Dickens epic Our Mutual Friend, contributing songs to the “play with music” based on the writer’s final complete novel, while Clint Dyer and Roy Williams have written Death of England: Closing Time – the final instalment of their trilogy of state of the nation plays.
Doctor Who star Jo Martin and Hayley Squires will in a play about a family dealing with the closure of their business and is described as a “thought provoking drama that explores family dynamics, race, colonialism and cancel culture”.
Norris told today’s press conference he supported the policy of levelling up but not at the “expense of London”.
Asked about the decision to make the ENO leave the capital or lose its Arts Council England (ACE) funding, he said: “What I don’t agree with is that involves diminishing support for the global city of arts”.
He added: “What London contributes to our economy and creative status in the world is enormous and outweighs the small amount of money we are talking about”.
