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  1. Exterior of National Theatre (Photograph: Laura Gallant for Time Out)
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  2. Interior architecture (Rob Greig for Time Out)
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  3. National Theatre (Rob Greig for Time Out)
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  4. National Theatre architecture (Rob Greig for Time Out)
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  5. National Theatre interior (Rob Greig for Time Out)
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  6. National Theatre Stairs (Rob Greig for Time Out)
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National Theatre

The world's greatest theatre?
  • Theatre | Public and national theatres
  • South Bank
  • Recommended
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Anya Ryan
Written by Anya Ryan
Contributing writer, Time Out London
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Time Out says

What is it? 

Arguably the greatest theatre in the world, the Royal National Theatre is also one of London's most recognisable landmarks and perhaps this country's foremost example of brutalist architecture. It boasts three auditoriums – the epic, ampitheatre-style Olivier, the substantial end-on space Lyttelton and the Dorfman, a smaller venue for edgier work. It's got a firm foothold on the West End, thanks to transferring shows like War Horse and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. In summer, it spills out onto Southbank with its River Stage line-up of outdoor events. And its NT Live programme beams its greatest hits to cinemas across the globe.

NT Live is just one of the initiatives to issue forth from the golden reign of former artistic director Nicholas Hytner, which saw a canny mix of modernised classics, popular new writing, and a splash of hip experimental work fill out the houses night after night. Hytner's successor Rufus Norris has offered a programme that's stuck with many Hytner fundamentals but offered an edgier, more international spin, with a run of ambitious, experimental and – in the beginning especially – sometimes divisive works.

From 2025, former Kiln boss Indhu Rubsingham will take over as artistic director: the first woman and the first person of colour to hold the post.

Why go? 

Of course, the main reason to go to the National Theatre is to see a play. Who knows? You could be lucky enough to nab a ticket to the next big hit, following in the footsteps of The History Boys or People Places and Things. But, the building has other features too. If you're free on a weekday afternoon (except Friday) take a roam around the National Theatre's archive to soak up some theatre history. Or, the bookshop on the theatre's ground floor is the perfect place to pick up a gift for a friend. 

Don't miss:

The NT is a popular hangout for theatre fans, thanks to its warren-like array of spots to work and play. But the real insider's hangout is The Understudy, a rough-and-ready riverside bar which brews its own lager and is thronged with theatre hipsters on pretty much any night of the week.

When to visit:

The National Theatre building is open from 10am-11pm every day apart from Sunday. Show times vary depending on the theatre, but usually start between 7-7.30pm

Ticket info:

Tickets are availble from the National Theatre website and prices vary.

Time Out tip: 

If you're looking for cheap seats, the NT releases £10 tickets each Friday at 1pm for the following week. The link is here.

Details

Address
South Bank
London
SE1 9PX
Transport:
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What’s on

Inter Alia

4 out of 5 stars
Playwrights usually want to flex their range after their first big hit. But it’s to the credit of Suzie Miller that she cares so much about the issues explored in her smash Prima Facie that she’s come up with a follow up that you have to at least describe as ‘a companion piece’.  Both Prima Facie and Inter Alia are named after legal terms, both are about high-achieving female members of the legal profession, and while Prima Facie was a monologue and Inter Alia is a three-hander, both have a huge-scale female role at their centre that makes them the perfect vehicle for a screen star looking to scratch the stage itch. And so both have had Justin Martin-directed UK premieres starring major celebrities: Jodie Comer made her stage debut in Prima Facie, while Rosamund Pike treads the boards for the first time in years in Inter Alia. The most crucial similarity, however, is not entirely apparent from the first half hour or so of Inter Alia, which is basically an extended sequence of Pike’s high court judge Jessica frenziedly girlbossing as she juggles her extremely high-powered job with a busy social life and being a mum to vulnerable teen Harry (Jasper Talbot). It’s a breathless performance from Pike, who crests and surges from neuroticism to icy confidence. It’s draining: there’s barely room for us or her to breathe, and a sequence where she sings Shania Twain’s ‘Man! I Feel Like a Woman!’ in a karaoke club feels like the conclusion of an extended intro basically designed to...
  • Drama

The Land of the Living

Former Young Vic boss David Lan is arguably the most important British artistic director of the twenty-first century, with his embrace of avant-garde and European directors arguably responsible for the leftwards drift of the West End and beyond in recent years. He’s been involved in various projects since – notably producing the travelling refugee advocacy artwork-slash-festival The Walk – but The Land of the Living marks his first major British production since leaving the Vic. He returns in playwright guise with a story about Ruth a UN aid worker who adopts Thomas, an Eastern European child who was abducted by the Nazis during the Second World War. Years later, Thomas confronts Ruth about the decisions she made as a young woman that changed his life.  Juliet Stevenson will star as Ruth and German actor Tom Wlaschiha as Thomas. In a rather luxury production, Stephen Daldry will direct.
  • Drama

Bacchae

This is a bold opener for Indhu Rubasingham’s first season in charge at the National Theatre: first time playwright (though he’s got decent pedigree as an actor) Nima Taleghani offers up what sounds like a racously modern – and probably quite foul-mouthed – adaptation of Euripides’s shockingly violent Ancient Greek tragedy. Rubasingham herself will direct the show, which has a cast including James McArdle, Clare Perkins and Ukweli Roach. Following its NT run a version of the show – probably without the famous people in it – will tour to secondary schools.
  • Drama

Hamlet

A short kids’ adaptation aside, Rufus Norris was the first artistic director of the National Theatre to not programme a production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet at all: it’s been 15 years since Rory Kinnear took on the role for Norris’s predecessor Nicholas Hytner. But new NT boss Indhu Rubasingham isn’t messing around, and her deputy Robert Hastie’s production is her first piece of programming in the Lyttelton. Hiran Abeysekera – best known for his Olivier-winning turn in the Hastie-directed Life of Pi – will take on the mantle of Shakespeare’s Great Dane. We don’t know a huge amount about the production beyond that, though the initial publicity images suggest a certain amount of irreverence, while the 7.15pm start times suggest it’ll be long, but maybe a bit clippier than the average Hamlet. Joining Abeysekera in the cast will be Phil Cheadle, Ayesha Dharker, Tom Glenister, HariMackinnon, Francesca Mills, Alistair Petrie, Siobhán Redmond and Geoffrey Streatfeild.
  • Shakespeare

End

The gesture of Rufus Norris’s final piece of National Theatre programming being called End has been a bit muddied by the temporary closure of the Dorfman Theatre causing a delay that means it only runs as his replacement Indhu Rubasingham’s first season has already started.  The main thing, though, is that End marks the conclusion of David Eldridge’s trilogy of relationship dramas that began with the fizz of the delightful global smash Beginning and continued with the darker, more difficult Middle. What will End be about? Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves make for a heavyweight cast for Rachel O’Riordan’s production and are certainly the oldest couple in the trilogy. That said, they’re both shy of their retirement age, and End seems unlikely to explore the idea of growing old together. The blurb says that after a mostly happy life together it’s time for things to end for Alfie and Julie – you can speculate as to what this means but we’ll soon see for ourselves.
  • Drama

Ballet Shoes

3 out of 5 stars
This review is from Christmas 2024. Ballet Shoes returns for Christmas 2025. The National Theatre’s big family Christmas show is a sumptuous adaptation of Noel Streatfeild’s classic 1936 children’s novel Ballet Shoes. It’s slick, classy and meticulously directed by Katy Rudd. But ultimately it lacks dramatic punch. The story follows the eccentric household initially headed by Justin Salinger’s Great Uncle Matthew (aka GUM), a paleontologist in the old-school explorer vein. A confirmed bachelor, he is initially aghast when he is abruptly made legal guardian of his 11-year-old niece Sylvia (Pearl Mackie). But he soon changes his tune when freak circumstances lead to him taking in three baby girls: Petrova (Yanexi Enriquez), Pauline (Grace Self) and Posy (Daisy Sequerra), each of whom he found orphaned while out on an expedition. But then he disappears on one of his trips; the meat of the story is about his three daughters growing up in the unconventional, almost entirely female household headed by Sylvia and their redoubtable housekeeper Miss Guthridge (Jenny Galloway). Each girl’s life is defined by seemingly having a calling that they are simply born with: Pauline to be an actor, Petrova to be a mechanic, and Posy to be a dancer, spurred on by the titular ballet shoes left to her by her mother.   To be honest… that’s sort of the whole plot. On a beautiful, fossil-filled set from Frankie Bradshaw, Rudd directs gracefully, pepping things up with various plays within the...
  • Drama

The Playboy of the Western World

New National Theatre boss Indhu Rubasingham has said she’d like to internationalise the NT more during her tenue, and certainly one striking element of her first announced programming are two collaborations with Dublin’s Abbey theatre and its artistic director Caitríona McLaughlin. Admittedly one isn’t for a while: Paul Mescal will star in Tom Murphy’s A Whistle in the Dark in 2027. Rather earlier, though, is a big old revival for John Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World, a lyrical dark comedy that follows Christy Mahon, a young man who stumbles into the pub claiming to have killed his own father – something that greatly impresses the fickle locals. Nicola Coughlan, Éanna Hardwicke, Siobhán McSweeney and Marty Rea will all star in McLaughlin’s production.
  • Drama
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