Nicholas Hytner has won the 2018 Theatre Book Prize from the Society for Theatre Research for Balancing Acts (Jonathan Cape) about his 12 years as director of the National Theatre.
Accepting the prize, he quipped as he thanked all the people who helped to make it possible: “I wish I could say I enjoyed writing this book as much as I do the day job! I’m used to giving people notes and direction not taking it myself.”
The other books shortlisted for the prize were Black British Drama: A Transnational Story by Michael Pearce (Routledge), Child Actors on the London Stage c 1600 by Julie Ackroyd (Sussex Academic), London Theatres by Michael Coveney and Peter Dazeley (Frances Lincoln) and Shakespeare on Stage Vol 2: Twelve Leading Actorson Twelve Key Roles by Julian Curry (Nick Hern Books).
Sixty books were submitted for the prize and judges spoke very highly of many of the titles which didn’t make the shortlist. They ranged across biography, history, dance and even, occasionally, novels among other aspects of theatre.
Chaired as usual by Howard Loxton, this year’s judges were Paul Miller, artistic director of Orange Theatre; theatre critic Sam Marlowe; and Professor Jeffery Richards of Lancaster University.
Paul Miller said of the award-winning entry: “This is a notably candid book from such a famously private person. It opens with a bravura account, flirting with gossip but keeping this side of naming names, of one typical day in the life of the director of the National Theatre.
“His book makes a fantastic case, at once sophisticated and robust, for a theatre with a generous popular gesture at its heart: a gloriously fitting coda to 12 years the National Theatre where he showed us how that’s done.”
It is a pity that the acoustics of Theatre Royal Drury Lane combined with a poorly balanced sound system made it quite difficult to hear some of the speakers – even Sam Marlowe whose contribution was videoed because she was unable to be present.
No such problems for Rory Kinnear, there to announce and present the prize, however. Unsurprisingly he knows how to use eye contact and to pace his delivery so that it rises above acoustic problems.
Susan Elkin
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