National Theatre boss Indhu Rubasingham: ‘An NT North? It’s not a good idea’

Earlier this year, National Theatre boss Indhu Rubasingham offered a stark warning. If new writing for the stage continued its rate of decline, she said, we would risk betraying the legacy of William Shakespeare. Delivering the 2026 Jennie Lee lecture, a new annual speech honouring Britain's first arts minister, Rubasingham was armed with shocking stats: the past decade had seen 44 per cent fewer new plays staged outside of London and 30 per cent less in the city, as well as a 76 per cent drop in new writing festivals.

Conservative theatremaking would do no less than “kill the future of theatre”. In real terms, that makes it significantly harder to find the next Fleabag, Prima Facie or Jerusalem. In that lecture, Rubasingham called for investment in the arts and committed to sustaining the National’s current levels of new writing throughout her tenure.

She’s put her money where her mouth is. Her opening production in September last year, Bacchae, was a rewrite of Euripides’ Greek tragedy by first-time writer Nima Taleghani – the first debut play to be staged in the NT’s 1000-seat Olivier theatre. She called it a “statement of intent”; The Independent called it “full-bodied theatre, rich with invention, intriguing themes and visual sumptuousness”.

Today, she announces her second season in charge of the Southbank building, revealing programming until the end of 2027 – and within those 18 productions are eight new plays, two of which will be performed on the Olivier stage: The Great Indaba by Moira Buffini, about the birth of the Good Friday agreement in South Africa (directed by Rubasingham herself), and Major by James Graham, about the dramatic moment in history when John Major succeeded Margaret Thatcher. Rubasingham’s appetite for the new has been shaped by the scene that formed her as a young director from Nottingham. And there were audiences for it.

Fringe theatre felt alive and kicking. And the generation before that thought we had a lot less funding.” Today, wearing a navy jumpsuit – both chic and practical enough to direct a cool new play and charm a drinks reception full of stakeholders – Rubasingham looks refreshed, having just returned from a holiday. You wouldn’t know she spends weekdays working from 8.30am until 11pm in this all-consuming role (she even recently moved from Kentish Town to the Southbank to be closer to work).

Her office, overlooking the River Thames, full of plants and playtexts, feels like a calm space of creative thought, but the fact that velvet green sofas take up most of the space suggests it’s a hive of lively discussions. But what does “conservative theatremaking” actually look like? Her point was that our storytelling is part of our national identity, where we have shown our brilliance on the global stage.