The Shed

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Temporary Magic

Ben Power, Associate Director, National Theatre

All theatres are, in a sense, temporary. Or at least the ones I like are. The ones I particularly like are less impenetrable monuments, cathedrals of culture, than petri-dishes of ideas and emotions, swirling, expanding universes. They’re built to house performances that will, by their very nature, happen once and then change. No theatrical event is repeatable; that’s what makes live performance so exciting. It’s what makes it different from film, literature, recorded music. It’s why we love it.

And some theatres are more temporary than others. The Shed, the National’s new wooden box, is built to last for less than a year. It’s popped up, almost overnight, on the South Bank, its four red chimneys becoming almost instantly iconic. Actually, teams of architects and contractors have been working round the clock for nearly a year, but the sense of a sudden organic blooming is crucial. The building feels playful, rough and very temporary. It feels as if it might disappear as suddenly as it came.

The programme of performance that we’re going to fill The Shed with over the next year is just as rough, just as experimental and, we hope, just as exciting as the space itself. Some shows will play for two months, others for just a couple of nights. They’ll be made by musicians, comedians, dancers and established theatre-makers trying to do things differently. To challenge themselves and our audience into thinking in a new way.

We hope that when audiences come into The Shed to see a show they’ll genuinely not know what to expect. We think that a sense of risk and uncertainty is a really important part of what makes theatre great and we’re aiming to push it to the max over the next few months in our big red box.

The Shed is an adventure for the National Theatre and it’s one we want everybody to be part of. Whether you’ve been coming to the National for years or you have never set foot in the place before, The Shed will have something for you. Tickets are £12 and £20 and there’ll be regular updates online about what shows are coming up and how you can get to see them.

Yesterday, I passed a group of kids, standing on one of the concrete terraces. They were looking up at the four red chimneys, as behind them red buses rumbled their way across Waterloo Bridge. “Look at that.” “Wow.” “What is it?” The eldest turned to his friends, “I dare you to go in”.

I dare everyone to come in. The Shed may be temporary but if we get things right, it might leave a permanent impression.