Reflecting on the 50th anniversary celebrations of the National Theatre in London, it's not hard for me to find the reason that I've been in the audience so rarely.
It's a brutalist barn. Completely lacking a sense of intimacy. Even at the finest productions of the greatest plays, we might just as well be in a conference centre.
So much better at the Old Vic, its temporary home in the 1960s before the barn was built. What wonderful memories I have of plays there. Peggy Ashcroft, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Albert Finney, Anthony Hopkins, Geraldine McEwan… But perhaps most of all John Stride and Edward Petherbridge in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. What a company.
And how brilliant of Kevin Spacey to realise this and go some way to re-creating those halcyon days there.
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