Who will lead the National Theatre next?

The Independent’s entertainment newsletter [SUBSCRIBE]( [SUBSCRIBE]( June 17, 2023 [View in browser](   Big news this week that Rufus Norris will[step down as the National Theatre’s artistic director in 2025](, after a decade in charge. He’s part of a massive game of musical chairs going on in the theatre world at the moment, with the Kiln, Donmar and Royal Court also set to undergo leadership changes soon. Norris is a self-deprecating character but his impact since taking on the job has been vast. He has had a string of brilliant hits, from Follies to Angels in America to Small Island, he has made widening representation a priority and also hasn’t been afraid to challenge audiences. Big shoes to step into, then; who might it be? Well, the National has never had a female boss before, and there are a few brilliant candidates. Indhu Rubasingham, who had a five-star hit with The Father and the Assassin at the NT last year, has recently stepped down from the Kiln, while Vicky Featherstone is due to leave the Royal Court soon (although having already run the National Theatre of Scotland, she may be looking for a different kind of challenge). Clint Dyer, who is currently the National's Deputy Artistic Director and directed a magnificent production of Othello last year, could step up. Or perhaps a duo: when Norris announced his departure, he suggested he could be followed by a “successor or successors” – pointing to the Royal Shakespeare Company’s recent decision to appoint Tamara Harvey and Daniel Evans to share the job of artistic director. I’m sure a clearer picture of the runners and riders will start to emerge soon. Rufus Norris will leave the National Theatre in 2025 (Brinkhoff and Moegenburg/National Theatre) I was a little bit surprised this week to hear that one of my favourite novels, The Pursuit of Love, has now been [reissued with a content warning by publishers Penguin](. Part of Nancy Mitford’s dazzling charm was her ability to playfully tease the upper classes of which she herself was a part. Yes, Uncle Matthew, a legendary character based upon Mitford’s own father, walked around saying “bloody foreigners” – but he was the butt of the joke. The world of culture lost two monumental talents this week, with the death of novelist Cormac McCarthy and Oscar-winning actor Glenda Jackson. [Martin Chilton paid tribute to McCarthy,]( an author who read Moby Dick eight times a year and wrote beautiful books full of violence and grit. And [I loved this story about Jackson](, who returned to the stage as King Lear in 2016 at the Old Vic: she never went to pick up either of her two Oscars, giving them to her mum to use as bookends instead. A few features and reviews I loved this week worth shouting about: Adam White’s chat with Emile Hirsch [about his rocky journey with stardom](, Mark Hudson’s review of the [muddled photography vs painting face-off]( at Tate Modern, Nick Hilton on the so-so [latest installment of]([Black Mirror](, and Roisin O’Connor’s [riotous encounter with N-Dubz](. Have a great weekend, Jessie [@jessiecath](   What to do this weekend Books | [Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver]( This year's Women's Prize for Fiction award went to American novelist Barbara Kingsolver, who becomes the first author to win it twice (she previously won for The Lacuna in 2009). Demon Copperhead updates Dickens' David Copperfield and moves it into modern day American opioid crisis. In this week's State of the Arts column, Claire Allfree argues that Kingsolver's win for this epic, chunky story shows that we need to stop thinking domestic fiction is the terrain of women writers. Jessie Thompson | Arts editor [@jessiecath](   Theatre | [Romeo and Juliet]( Football transfer season is on, and Richmond FC's Sam Obisanya has transferred to fair Verona. The Ted Lasso star is appearing in the Almeida's new production of Romeo and Juliet opposite Isis Hainsworth, in a new production directed by Rebecca Frecknall. Jessie Thompson | Arts editor [@jessiecath](   Film | [The Flash]( Considering the on and off-set turmoil that has enveloped The Flash since it was first announced nearly a decade ago – notably the very public meltdown of its star Ezra Miller – you’d be forgiven for thinking a witch put a hex on it at some point in early development. The last chaotic trick up her sleeve? That The Flash is by most accounts a misfire, despite the presence of Michael Keaton reprising his Batman role from 30 years ago, and the millions of dollars invested in its (ultimately not-very-good) CGI. With the DC film universe about to undergo an imminent creative overhaul, this movie comes off like a surreal one-off that went mystifyingly awry... which might, in fact, make it worth seeing? In cinemas now Adam White | Film editor [@__adamwhite](   TV | [Black Mirror]( Four years after the release of series five – which suffered a significant dip in critical reception – Black Mirror [is back with a five-episode season](. Tackling issues from artificial intelligence to automaton clones, via genres ranging from black comedy to supernatural horror, the new series is inflected with classic Black Mirror tropes but also brings something new. For the first time, Black Mirror is not merely holding the looking glass up to the damage wrought by technology, but to the self-inflicted wounds of society as well. The resultant mishmash demonstrates that the best episodes of Black Mirror will always be dystopian, and experimenting with that winning formula is a fool’s errand. On Netflix Nick Hilton | TV critic [@nickfthilton](   Art | [Honour Among Thieves, Alveston Fine Arts]( This small but mighty gallery in Notting Hill opens a new show this weekend featuring rising talents Anne Athena, Jesse Grylls, Teddy Hansen and Dan Hollings. Featuring works across painting, ceramics and sketches, the show runs until 23 July. Jessie Thompson | Arts editor [@jessiecath](     [The Saturday Interview – Kelsey Grammer]( [Oscars image]( Kelsey Grammer stars in 'Jesus Revolution' (Getty) The ‘Cheers’ star Kelsey Grammer is a born-again Christian and plays a controversial real-life pastor in new film ‘Jesus Revolution’. This week,[he spoke to Louis Chilton](about faith, loss, and the return of Frasier Crane. Grammer as Chuck Smith in ‘Jesus Revolution’ (Lionsgate) Read an extract from our Saturday Interview below… He describes one particular moment when he was a teenager growing up in Pompano Beach, Florida, and was approached on the shorefront one evening by a couple of “really, really beautiful girls”. They asked him: “Have you met Jesus?” “And I thought, ‘Well, I think I have, honestly.’ That’s how I felt,” Grammer recalls. “And of course, they were so lovely and positive, and I was a teenage boy. It was tempting. But I didn’t end up going with them because I didn’t think I needed to be reborn. I thought I was already there. But then, of course, life threw a few things at me that I didn’t know how to handle.” This last sentence has the ring of understatement. Across the first three decades of his life, Grammer was blindsided by a series of terrible and unlikely tragedies. In 1968, his father, Frank Allen Grammer Jr, was murdered in a home invasion. In 1975, his 18-year-old sister Karen was kidnapped, raped and murdered. In 1980, two of his half-brothers died in a freak scuba-diving accident. To suffer any one of these adversities would be horrific; piled atop one another, the effect is unimaginable. [Read the full interview here](   Weekend Shelf-Care Weekend Shelf-Care Rachel Hewitt Grief and the great outdoors are the topics explored by Rachel Hewitt in this moving new book, which also explores women who have faced injustice in the world of sport. This is the third book from Hewitt, and her most personal so far. A book I recently read and loved is… Men Who Hate Women, by Laura Bates. "Loved" is not the right word, because it’s a very difficult read, but it’s genuinely illuminating: it lays bare the sense of insufficiency that many men feel today, and shows how women are being scapegoated as the aggressors. My three fantasy literary dinner party guests would be… Erich Fromm, Marge Piercy and Lyn Mikel Brown. Their books utterly transformed my understanding of how our inner lives – our emotions and imagination – are shaped by historical and economic forces; often detrimentally so for women and girls. Not finishing books: my stance is… *Shrug*. I rarely finish (non-fiction) books, tbh, as I prefer to dip in and out of particular chapters. And I have no problem with not finishing a book that I’m not enjoying: life’s too short, and there’s not enough time as it is to read all the good books. My writing routine is… Extremely variable, depending on whether I’m writing memoir, biography, history, or contemporary analysis. But in general, I write best in the mornings; and my first drafts are horribly waffly and need a lot of editing, preferably after a long break, so that I can approach the text with fresh eyes. 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