Guest Blog: Old Red Lion Artistic Director Alexander Knott On Programming A Triptych

From the off, my inclination has been towards the double bill. I don't know why. I've described it in various ways in the past few years. "It's like a book of short stories." "It's like letting Netflix play on to the next episode." "Our generation demands theatre make an impact, and not outstay its welcome." "It's a new way of supporting new writing."

Maybe I just like it.

The first show we (my collaborators at theatre collective, Bag of Beard, and ensemble company, BoxLess) created out of Italia Conti was a double bill called Two Short Stories - two plays, both set in the same London flat, one in the 1960s, one in the present day.

And partly because of my fascination with the idea of the multiple play project, and partly because I wanted to see the Old Red Lion become more affordable and more accessible for emerging companies, one of my first acts as Artistic Director has been to divide the programme into short run slots.

Multiple plays every night, shorter, more dynamic runs, meaning bigger audiences and cheaper hire prices. A curated programme of dynamic, impactful work.

I'm not claiming to have invented the wheel, absolutely not. The Camden People's Theatre arguably pioneered this model, and tens of pub theatres across London also employ it.

But the idea of a selection box of shows, staying true to the ORL's mandate of exceptional theatre since 1979, and its unparalleled reputation for launching the first work of the brightest stars of tomorrow, the creatives who will define our theatrical culture - a way of taking runs of three and four nights, and making as much of an impact with that as you can in four weeks (and that is an achievable goal, as the Vaults clearly demonstrates) - that's what excites me. Seeing theatre-makers claim our unconventional, deceptively deep, diagonal stage as their own.

There are pitfalls. With shorter, festival-style programming, you lose the ability to totally transform our black box studio. The budget most likely will not be there. But the power of the audience's imagination has been around far longer than transformative set design, and what you gain is a range and breadth and diversity of theatrical voices, telling their truths and their stories to larger audiences. We hope.

My own gesture towards this model is a triptych of plays - the first revival of the mighty Simon Stephens' Nuclear War, not seen since its Royal Court debut. On the same night, in the same production, there's the true story of a man buried alive, written by his son and performed by his grandson.

And capping off the triple bill is Graceland, a darkly comic monologue about a science teacher whose wife, and Elvis Presley, are pushing him towards combustion, by the critically acclaimed writer of Offie-winning The Glasshouse, Max Saunders-Singer.

Stephens' cult hit play, designed to be fused with movement, seemed ideal for BoxLess Theatre, whose mandate is to combine writing and dance theatre to create new ways of seeing both.

Buried is the true story of performer James Demaine's grandfather. A non-linear, anti-war play with a message that could not be more prescient - the universal story of the human cost of war, distilled into one man's fractured memories as he struggles to come to terms with his life and his death, while buried alive.

The writer, twice-Verity Bargate-winning international playwright David Spencer, is James's uncle. The story of the grandfather, told by the son and performed by the grandson, provides a fascinating hook for what develops as a profoundly important story. It could not be more vitally important that, in a world so frequently on the cusp of war, we hear a story that at its heart has the line "Fearful or fearless, whatever you do, you die".

Three plays, headlined by one of the greatest writers of modern times, in one production. With this, our Emerging Artist Festival, and a larger programme of some of the most exciting independent theatre in London, I'm hoping to get to the heart of the new, the bold, the most thrilling theatrical voices, and make Exceptional Theatre since 1979 for as long as we possibly can. The history of the ORL demands it.

The Emerging Artist Festival is now running at the Old Red Lion, and 'Nuclear War' by Simon Stephens, with 'Buried' and 'Graceland', runs 3-21 March

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