National Theatre

Kenneth Tynan

Literary Manager of the National Theatre 1963-1974.

Ken Tynan photo by Ida Kar

Kenneth Tynan was chiefly known as a journalist, finding fame with his work as a theatre critic with the Evening Standard, Observer, and The New Yorker. A brilliant theatre critic he exhibited an acute understanding of acting and stagecraft and possessed a gift for characterization and the witty put-down. Tynan had been a passionate supporter of the movement to found the National Theatre; in 1955 critics Tynan and Richard Findlater (The Winding Road to King's Reach), despairing of the Theatre's ever being built, staged a mock funeral beside the foundation stone. In an article titled 'Payment Deferred' (1956) Tynan again lamented the failure of the movement to achieve its goal and described his ideal National Theatre and its ideal Artistic Director:

Must it again be urged that Britain is the only European country with a living theatrical tradition which lacks a national theatre…Of the six objects prescribed for the National Theatre, Stratford and the Old Vic fulfil but one, that of presenting Shakespeare. . The others (those of reviving the rest of our classical drama, presenting new plays and the best of foreign drama, and preventing recent plays of merit from rusting into oblivion) have no roof at all over their heads...[On the Artistic Director] He should be a man like Brecht in Berlin or Khedrov in Moscow: a combination of sage and ball of fire. The type is rare in our theatre, though Granville-Barker could have (and Gordon Craig might have) developed into it. Even so, a few names spring to mind; and two of them, in spite of the drawbacks involved, are the names of actors – Quayle and Olivier. (Observer, 1 January 1956)

Kenneth Tynan photo by Ida Kar

This prescient nomination of Laurence Olivier would be fulfilled in the following years. Tynan suggested himself to Olivier for the role of literary manager (dramaturg) and was appointed in 1963. His role included recommending plays for the repertoire, commissioning translations and selecting adapters for non-English plays. Tynan's understanding of the concept of a repertory theatre was articulated in a speech to the Royal Society of Arts in 1964. The variety of the repertoire and the experimentation in its playing in these early years at the National owed a great deal to Tynan's catholic tastes and his influence on Olivier: amongst many other achievements Tynan commissioned Robert Graves' brilliant adaptation of Much Ado about Nothing for Franco Zeffirelli's 1965 production and brought Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead from the fringe of the 1966 Edinburgh Festival to the stage of the National Theatre. A controversial figure throughout his career, several of Tynan's repertoire proposals were rejected by the Board of the National Theatre or fell afoul of the Lord Chamberlain (who issued licenses for plays); notably Rolf Hochhuth's Soldiers which accused Churchill of war crimes, and Frank Wedekind's Spring Awakening, about the effects of sexual repression on young people. After 11 years at the National Theatre, Tynan returned to theatre criticism, originated and collaborated on several shows, including the erotic revue Oh Calcutta!, and continued to write biographies and books on theatre.

As part of Tynan's job as literary manager at the NT he produced a List of Plays for the National Theatre. This document presented a brief list of plays both British and foreign, from the Ancient Greeks to 1960s, that Tynan considered suitable for selection by the National for its repertoire. You can find it as a downloadable document on our Past Productions page.

Kenneth Tynan Bibliography:

Tynan; Kenneth, He That Plays the King (Longmans, 1950)
Tynan; Kenneth, Alec Guinness (Rockliff, 1953)
Tynan; Kenneth, Persona Grata (Alan Wingate, 1953)
Tynan; Kenneth, Bull Fever (Longmans, 1955)
Tynan; Kenneth, The Recruiting Officer: The National Theatre Production (Rupert Hart Davis, 1965)
Tynan; Kenneth, Othello: The National Theatre Production (Rupert Hart Davis, 1966)
Tynan; Kenneth, Tynan Right and Left (Longmans, Green, 1967)
Tynan; Kenneth, The Sound of Two Hands Clapping (Jonathan Cape, 1975)
Tynan; Kenneth, Show People (Simon and Schuster, 1979)
Tynan; Kenneth, A View of the English Stage, 1944-63 (Methuen, 1984)

Tynan; Kathleen, The Life of Kenneth Tynan (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987)
Tynan; Kathleen (ed.), Kenneth Tynan Letters (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1994)
Lahr; John (ed.), The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan (Bloomsbury, 2001)
Dundy; Elaine, Life Itself! (Virago Press, 2001)
Shellard; Dominic, Kenneth Tynan, A Life (Yale University Press, 2003)

Kenneth Tynan's personal papers are held at the British Library www.bl.uk