Qualla: Royal National Theatre

Royal National Theatre: Introduction

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Man vyi, Public domain. Prince Charles once said it looked like a clever way of building a nuclear power station in the middle of London without anyone objecting. The architect Denys Lasdun, who designed it, called concrete itself a poetic material. Visitors stand on the river walkway, look at the stacked terraces and angled towers rising from the South Bank, and pick a side. Few buildings in Britain provoke such immediate, durable, and divided opinion as the Royal National Theatre, and few have so single-mindedly delivered what they were built for. Inside those much-debated concrete walls are three of the most important stages in the English-speaking world: the Olivier, the Lyttelton, and the Dorfman. Laurence Olivier founded the company in 1963. The building opened on this site in 1976 after decades of false starts.

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Image: Man vyi | Public domain

Royal National Theatre: A Theatre Without a Home

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hogweard, Public domain. The idea of a National Theatre had haunted British cultural life since the Victorian era. Plans were drawn, sites proposed, foundation stones laid and forgotten. World wars and shifting governments kept postponing the project. When Laurence Olivier finally founded the National Th...

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Image: Hogweard | Public domain

Royal National Theatre: Lasdun's Concrete Landscape

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit mira66 from Norwich, Norfolk, England, CC BY 2.0. Denys Lasdun was not given the brief to design a single building. He was given the brief to design a piece of city. The result is more like a landscape than a theatre: stacked horizontal terraces, angled fly towers, exterior staircases and walkways, all in board-marked concrete t...

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Image: mira66 from Norwich, Norfolk, England | CC BY 2.0

Royal National Theatre: Three Stages, Three Personalities

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK, CC BY 2.0. The Olivier Theatre, named for the founding director, is the largest. Its open stage was inspired by the ancient amphitheatre at Epidaurus, and underneath it sits a complex piece of stage machinery called the Drum Revolve, a deep cylindrical lift that can lower entire sets out of...

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Image: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK | CC BY 2.0

Royal National Theatre: National Theatre Live

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Todd Huffman from Phoenix, AZ, CC BY 2.0. In 2009 the National Theatre began broadcasting live performances by satellite to cinemas. National Theatre Live was an experiment that worked. Productions are filmed during real performances in front of audiences in London and beamed to thousands of cinemas in the UK and abroad,...

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Image: Todd Huffman from Phoenix, AZ | CC BY 2.0

Royal National Theatre: The Patrons and the Future

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Garry Knight from London, England, CC BY 2.0. Queen Elizabeth II was the theatre's royal patron from 1974 until 2019. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex took the role briefly from January 2019 to February 2021. Queen Camilla has held it since March 2022. The artistic directorship has rotated through some of the most influential figur...

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Image: Garry Knight from London, England | CC BY 2.0