Ravenhill Re-Ruffles Feathers at National???

Right-wing groups are likely to have their feathers ruffled again soon at the National. When, earlier this year, the NT staged Nicholas Hytner's production of Mark Ravenhill's Mother Clap's Molly House, it received numerous complaints that the theatre's subsidies should not be spent endorsing work "designed to affront traditional family values". That didn't prevent the play - a black comedy set largely in a male brothel - receiving critical acclaim and a West End transfer (it opens at the Aldwych in February 2002). It doesn't seem to be doing any harm either to the prospect of future NT collaborations between Hytner and Ravenhill, who says he's already planning another play to be staged on the South Bank in late 2003 or 2004, not long after Hytner takes over as NT artistic director. Ravenhill's best-known play to date, Shopping and Fucking, about rent boys, stirred up plenty of controversy too. It was produced by Out of Joint, who will be tackling another Ravenhill premiere in 2003.

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