National's Hytner Calls Halt to Youth Obsession???

The National Theatre's artistic director-designate Nicholas Hytner has penned a passionate manifesto in which he has called for a "new agenda for the performing arts". In the piece, published in yesterday's Observer, Hytner called into question the increasing emphasis on the need to draw in young audiences to theatre. According to received wisdom, "there's evidently a thing called the young audience and everybody accepts that it's a good thing. And there's also a white, middle class, middle-aged audience and it's a very very bad thing indeed." But Hytner believes there's a "real danger in relentless and exclusive focus on the nature of our audience....There's nothing inherently good about any particular audience. We mustn't judge the success of an artistic enterprise by its ability to pull in an Officially Approved Crowd." Nevertheless, Hytner went on to caution against a diminishment of arts education in schools and to praise the UK's historical balance between subsidy and box office funding and its consequent blurring of art and entertainment. Hytner takes over from Trevor Nunn in April 2003. Amongst his inaugural season will be productions of Jerry Springer - The Opera, Adrian Lester's Henry V a revival of Tom Stoppard's Jumpers. The director also has plans to lower ticket prices to increase audience accessibility.

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