A Monsterist arrives at the National

On his blog for The Stage, Mark Shenton considers how the National Theatre's £10 ticket scheme has brought a big new play (England People Very Nice by Richard Bean, a playwright belonging to the 'Monsterists' group) to what should be a big new audience.

Undoubtedly the biggest innovation of Nick Hytner’s regime at the National Theatre has been the Travelex £10 season, and its return last night for the 7th year running with the opening of England People Very Nice, the first production of this year’s season, brings a big, boisterous, noisy public play to a (hopefully) big, boisterous, noisy audience. This is exactly one of the things that the Travelex season is here to support: to push audiences into supporting new work that they might otherwise not take a chance on - and to push playwrights into creating it.