The Londoner: National Theatre’s more match fit now, says Rufus Norris

Rufus Norris, the artistic director of the National Theatre, tells us the pandemic has “cured me of my natural optimism”, but even so he feels the National “is more match fit” than ever.  

“The industry is much more communicative with itself than it was before,” he tells The Londoner.  

Last night the National staged the first and last night of Death of England, ahead of lockdown beginning today.  

Norris said there had been “huge low periods”, adding, “in times of crisis, if you feel optimistic all the time you’re going to a get a lot of knocks.”

He said it made him focus on asking “what are we here for?” Although the front-of-house team at the theatre “went through a really terrible time”, Norris says: “We’re more match fit.  

“When the lockdown is lifted, even if there’s another, we know what we’re doing now.”

He added: “We’ve got to keep our stamina strong” and  "emerge out of this strongly without having the picture shattered, especially freelancers, who have been least well served. The more we can do to keep blood pumping around the system the better.”  

As for himself, when The Londoner asked what he planned to do differently during this lockdown, he replied: “I want to not get Covid this time.” Who could argue with that?

Actor T’Nia Miller says she is fed up with “f***ing period dramas like Downton Abbey” receiving “the same awards and the same funding”.  Speaking to The Gay Times she said “it is bloody right on” that streaming services are starting to show more portrayals of queer female love. “It has to It has to abso-f***king-lutely be normalised.”

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AUTHOR and disability campaigner Jen Campbell tells us film producers need to “stop ignoring” people with disabilities following criticism of The Witches. Campbell said she was disappointed but not surprised that the 2020 Roald Dahl adaptation uses disability “as a marker for villainy”.  In the film, Anne Hathaway’s villainous character, the Grand Witch, has missing fingers. Campbell pointed out that she appears to have Ectrodactyly, a limb abnormality that is commonly referred to as “split hand.” “It’s a lazy trope that causes real harm to the disabled community, and those with bodily differences,” she tells us. 

The filmmakers and Warner Bros. said they “regret any offense caused” and  are “deeply saddened to learn that our depiction of the fictional characters in The Witches could upset people with disabilities". But Campbell said: “This conversation has been going on for a long, long time. It’s time they stopped ignoring it."

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WRITER Holly Bourne has welcomed a “glorious show of solidarity” after 200 authors signed up to her initiative to help bookshops through lockdown. They will sign plates which can be placed in books customers order through independent shops. Bourne told The Londoner: “I want all these bookshops to be there at the end of lockdown”.

Rory Stewart has taken a writerly pickaxe to Boris Johnson in the Times Literary Supplement. “Johnson is after all the most accomplished liar in public life — perhaps the best liar ever to serve as prime minister,” the former Tory leadership hopeful says. “He has mastered the use of error, omission, exaggeration, diminution, equivocation and flat denial. He has perfected casuistry, circumlocution, false equivalence and false analogy.” Tell us what you really think, Rory.