National Theatre to smash records with eight plays open in London at once

Staging a coup ? the National Theatre's Cocktail Sticks, featuring Alex Jennings as Alan Bennett, with Gabrielle Lloyd. Photograph: Jayne West

For the first time ever, the National Theatre will have four productions running simultaneously in the West End from March, when Alan Bennett's autobiographical double bill Hymn and Cocktail Sticks transfers into the Duchess theatre under the title Untold Stories.

Nadia Fall and Nicholas Hytner's productions, which both star Alex Jennings as the veteran playwright, will join War Horse, One Man, Two Guvnors and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in the commercial sector on 22 March for a 12-week run.

With another four shows playing in repertoire at its South Bank premises, the National Theatre will have a total of eight shows open across the capital. However, that figure could yet hit double-figures, with Hytner due to announce a new season starting in April in the next fortnight. With seven auditoriums at its disposal, the National could sell as many as 40,000 tickets every week in London ? significantly more than twice its capacity at home.

The National Theatre has significantly upped its commercial output in recent years, having set up a dedicated team to handle its UK transfers. It is also in the process of opening an office in New York to oversee its transatlantic operations.

Untold Stories will also become the fourth of Alan Bennett's plays to have played in the West End in the past five years. The National Theatre production of The History Boys ended its run at the Wyndhams in April 2008, since when revivals of Enjoy and The Madness of George III have also moved into town. His other new play, People, continues at the National until 9 April.

Hymn, directed by Fall, is described as "a touching memoir of music in childhood", while Cocktail Sticks stages a one-way conversation between a son and his dead father.

The Guardian's theatre critic, Michael Billington, wrote that the pair of plays "make a surprisingly rich theatrical event ? [and] stir your recollections of adolescence."

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2013/jan/17/national-theatre-eight-plays

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