. But Public Acts, which has seen the NT team up with UK partner theatres and community organisations, defines most clearly Norris's determination that the National be truly 'for the people'. In the five years since it launched fully, with Emily Lim's epic production of Shakespeare's Pericles, it has kept pushing the boat out in terms of logistics and including all-comers. Last August, I beheld a Brecht rewrite in Doncaster that even included a colliery band in its 100-plus ensemble. But this year Doncaster has been just one staging-post for a five-parted, multi-authored account of Odysseus's laborious home-coming, which has taken in Stoke-on-Trent, Doncaster, Trowbridge and Sunderland since it began its journey in March. At the weekend, it reached 'home' for the climax – 'The Underworld', the Olivier stage groaning with participants from all those places, augmented by a tonne of Londoners too. The interval must have resembled something akin to backstage at the Coronation; we're told they coined the term 'toiletography' to describe the coordination of 160-plus bladders. Out front, it all looked pretty seamless, no mean feat. Even if it sometimes sounded as if bit-part players were flatly saying their lines, and the show was wisely spearheaded by a trained cohort, in the main there was no awkward gulf between amateur and professional. A cohesive, carnivalesque spirit prevailed, with a lot of rousing song and movement; writer Chris Bush and composer Jim Fortune (who collaborated on Pericles), together with Lim, gave us something akin to Ancient Greece: the musical. The prolific Bush likes to keep things light, and dares dally with the trite: it didn't take long after Dylan Bennette's preening Hermes arrived, fo){kind=link}
Despite the mix of amateur and professional actors from across the UK, this carnivalesque, multi-authored production proved rather seamless
It will be interesting to observe what happens to the National’s Public Acts initiative once Rufus Norris hands over in 2025, as was announced in June. His reputation as artistic director largely rests on programming repertoire hits (which he has duly delivered). But Public Acts, which has seen the NT team up with UK partner theatres and community organisations, defines most clearly Norris’s determination that the National be truly ‘for the people’.
In the five years since it launched fully, with Emily Lim’s epic production of Shakespeare’s Pericles, it has kept pushing the boat out in terms of logistics and including all-comers. Last August, I beheld a Brecht rewrite in Doncaster that even included a colliery band in its 100-plus ensemble. But this year Doncaster has been just one staging-post for a five-parted, multi-authored account of Odysseus’s laborious home-coming, which has taken in Stoke-on-Trent, Doncaster, Trowbridge and Sunderland since it began its journey in March.
At the weekend, it reached ‘home’ for the climax – “The Underworld”, the Olivier stage groaning with participants from all those places, augmented by a tonne of Londoners too. The interval must have resembled something akin to backstage at the Coronation; we’re told they coined the term “toiletography” to describe the coordination of 160-plus bladders.
Out front, it all looked pretty seamless, no mean feat. Even if it sometimes sounded as if bit-part players were flatly saying their lines, and the show was wisely spearheaded by a trained cohort, in the main there was no awkward gulf between amateur and professional. A cohesive, carnivalesque spirit prevailed, with a lot of rousing song and movement; writer Chris Bush and composer Jim Fortune (who collaborated on Pericles), together with Lim, gave us something akin to Ancient Greece: the musical.