Hall’s First Hampstead Season Hailed Success

According to a press statement, the season, which finishes with the run of Mike Leigh’s Ecstasy (opens 15 March, previews from 10 March), has presented “279 performances of nine pieces of work across the two spaces”. Among its biggest hitters has been Nina Raine’s NHS drama Tiger Country, which “set a series of new records for a play at the venue with the highest daily box office take over three times in a week”.

The season, which opened with Hall’s own UK premiere production of Shelagh Stephenson’s Enlightenment, has also seen higher attendances over a six-month period than “ever before in the company’s 52-year history”.

Leigh’s production, a revival of his own early comedy Ecstasy, is already “the most successful play in Hampstead’s history” in terms of tickets sold and cash taken.

Hall, who took over from Anthony Clark in January 2010, said: “ I am enormously proud of the work we have achieved in my first year at Hampstead and I am very excited about the future, and bringing more outstanding work to this wonderful building.

“I want Hampstead to stay at the forefront of new writing and we will be presenting ever more challenging and exciting plays in the next season, with some of the country’s most thrilling theatre makers, which we will be announcing shortly.”