Could the RSC & NT Ever Combine Forces???

Perhaps if the National's artistic director-designate Nicholas Hytner had discussed the matter with West End producer Thelma Holt, he wouldn't have looked so stunned at the press conference held yesterday to announce details of his inaugural season (See News, 23 Jan 2003). Holt, who is co-producing the West End season of the Royal Shakespeare Company's five-play "Jacobethan" season, told an Evening Standard journalist this week that she had a "straightforward" solution to the Stratford-based institution's current malaise. "In my dreams, I would like the National and the RSC to combine," she says, "to keep their autonomy but to use each other's three theatres, build on each other's strengths." Or perhaps not so straightforward. The issue arose at yesterday's NT press conference when one journalist asked Hytner whether he's ever consider renting space to the RSC. Visibly taken aback, the National chief-to-be admitted, "I don't think I've ever been asked that". After brief reflection, however, he vigorously rejected the notion, saying: "We (the National and the RSC) measure ourselves against each other, we define ourselves against each other."

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