All change at Hampstead

As Ed Hall takes over the Hampstead Theatre, Lloyd Evans offers some advice on how to run this prestigious venue

Congratulations, mate. You’ve landed a plum job. And a bloody tough one, too. Paradoxically, it’s harder to run a single venue than to run a group of theatres. The focus is tighter. There’s less opportunity to experiment, to learn as you go, to fine-tune your style. You have to get it right fast. Here are some hints.

First, where are you? Since moving to its new premises in 2003, the Hampstead has barely left a trace on London’s theatre scene. Many play-goers have yet to pay their first visit. You’re a product in a marketplace but you’re invisible. In the age of shameless self-promotion you need a blatant publicity stunt to put yourself back on the map. It needn’t be theatrical but it has to be headline-friendly. A star-studded gala event for Haiti, perhaps. A one-off Pinter Tribute led by Lady Antonia with a host of luvvies reading from the oeuvre. Or how about this: get Gordon to announce the date of the election from your stage. Surround him, Ceausescu-like, by beaming schoolgirls bearing armfuls of roses. Once you’ve attracted the world’s attention you can start running the theatre.

Hampstead’s good name is your starting point and your destination. By invoking its past you can secure its future. This is the stage where Abigail’s Party was born. The Dumb Waiter had its world première here, as did Michael Frayn’s breakthrough play, Alphabetical Order. Way back in 1924 Noël Coward launched his career at the Hampstead Theatre with his sex-and-drugs shocker, The Vortex (though to be strictly accurate that venue was located on a site currently occupied by the Everyman Cinema). A shrewd move would be to commission work from the grand old men of English theatre.