Nicholas Hytner: ‘You don’t find The History Boys by devoting yourself to Shakespeare’

“I’ve always been as interested in finding the sweet spot between creating new, challenging stuff and pulling in a large audience,” says the director Nicholas Hytner. “It’s when thousands and thousands of people come to see a play that the theatre starts to feel like it’s as embedded in our culture as it undoubtedly was in the 1590s.”

In the 12 years that he was artistic director of the National Theatre, Hytner found that sweet spot many times, programming hits such as The History Boys, War Horse and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Now he is about to try his luck with a bold new venture. He and his long-term associate Nick Starr are opening the first wholly new, large-scale commercial theatre (excepting Shakespeare’s Globe in 1997) in London since 1937 and aiming to fill it with eye-catching, enticingly cast new plays.

The Bridge Theatre is a custom-built auditorium just south of Tower Bridge, snuggled into a new residential and commercial development overlooking the Tower of London and the river Thames. It’s not far, in fact, from where Shakespeare used to ply his trade in the 1590s, when the area was beyond the jurisdiction of the City of London and so home to all sorts of disreputable places, such as brothels, bear-baiting pits, taverns — and theatres.

Contemporary London might be shorter on bear-baiting pits, but it is far richer in theatres. There are dozens in the West End alone — so many, indeed, that the area boasts the nickname “Theatreland”. Which begs the question: do we really need another one? Surely the capital has enough stages?

Hytner disagrees. Such is the current appetite for live drama, he says, that there is actually a shortage of theatres in London.

“Over the last 15 years there was a 25 per cent rise in the number of theatre tickets sold,” he observes. “And if you are a commercial theatre producer your first challenge is to get hold of a theatre. There are more producers wanting to put on shows than the current theatre stock can accommodate and there are audiences waiting to fill those seats.”

Even more important than the number of theatres available, however, is the nature of those theatres. West End theatres, home to most commercial shows, tend to be handsome, Victorian buildings with fixed proscenium arch stages: gorgeous in themselves, but restrictive in practice.

“The best West End theatres are beautiful, atmospheric and harmonious,” says Hytner. “But they’re not flexible. Theatres that were built for a particular kind of show are trying to accommodate 100 years’ worth of repertoire that has emerged since they were built. And they are often not so suitable for the kind of theatre people are making now.

“We wanted the freedom as producers that having our own theatre would give us,” he adds. “But we also had a huge interest in what a 21st century theatre might look like. It really felt like time to think about how you might create a building for theatre as it is currently made.”

The Bridge will be the size of a West End playhouse such as the Lyric (more than 900 seats) but with the flexibility of, say, the Dorfman in the National Theatre — a space that can be switched into numerous configurations. Designed by award-winning architects Haworth Tompkins, it also promises good sightlines, plentiful leg room, modern facilities and — jubilation! — an abundance of ladies’ toilets (more than 30 in all). It’s a combination that Hytner hopes will attract not only contemporary writers and directors, but also today’s audiences, who are accustomed to adaptable subsidised theatres and to ad hoc venues such as disused factories and warehouses.

The more content that is shrunk into a tiny screen, the greater the premium put on the live experience

It’s not just the fixtures and fittings that will be new. Of the eight shows so far announced, all but one (Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar) will be world premieres. The theatre opens with Young Marx, a comic play by Richard Bean and Clive Coleman, starring Rory Kinnear as Karl Marx (not the august bearded economist with whom we are familiar, but his chaotic, penniless younger self, rattling around 1850s Soho). Simon Russell Beale will play JS Bach in a new Nina Raine drama, there will be work by Lucy Prebble, Lucinda Coxon and Sam Holcroft (half the plays are by women) and a premiere from rising star Barney Norris.

“The production of classics is in safe hands,” explains Hytner. “And also, it is the new stuff that really breaks through, if you get it right. You don’t find The History Boys or Curious Incident by devoting yourself constantly to the production of Shakespeare and Racine.”

Bringing the energy of new work to a wide audience is an abiding passion of Hytner’s: at the subsidised National Theatre he was keen to coax playwrights on to the larger stages. The Bridge is a far riskier proposition, however. It’s a full-time commercial producing house.

The majority of West End theatres operate mostly as receiving houses, rather than generating work themselves. And the majority of new plays that arrive in the West End have emerged through the subsidised sector. Hytner and Starr will be programming new work, from scratch, without that safety net. Is that not scary?

“It is risky,” he admits. “We have no subsidy, nor are we a charity [the company received £16m in investment from a small group of investors]. We have got to make it work as a business. That said, we don’t have to show a return show by show. So we can afford a flop. We just can’t afford a string of flops!”

The Bridge offers an exciting new flexible arena that should encourage contemporary playwrights to think big. And should all go well, Hytner and Starr hope to build further new theatres. It’s a striking vote of confidence for an art form several millennia old. But Hytner points out that, digital revolution notwithstanding, demand for live art is on the increase.

“One of the brilliant things about theatre,” he says, “is that the more content is shrunk into a tiny screen, the more that’s available at the click of a mouse, the greater the premium you put on the live experience: on the irreducible thrill of being in the room at the same time.”

‘Young Marx’, The Bridge Theatre, London, October 18-December 31 bridgetheatre.co.uk

Photograph: Helen Maybanks