Published: 3:38PM GMT 21 Jan 2010  Nicholas Hytner, artistic director of the National Theatre, who has received a Knighthood for services to drama Photo: REUTERS  A welter of work, with an emphasis, according to the recently knighted Hytner, on the idea of a ‘self-indulgent generation peering into the abyss of oncoming catastrophe’, will hit the Olivier, Lyttelton and Cottesloe stages over the coming months.  Among the most prominent highlights, the film director Danny Boyle will make his return to British theatre early in 2011 after an absence of 15 years to direct a new adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Rory Kinnear will play Hamlet and rising playwright Mike Bartlett, whose last play ‘Cock’ was a sell-out at the Royal Court, will deliver what sounds, according to Hytner’s accompanying description, like the first major Angry Young Man play of the new decade: Earthquakes in London, a co-production with Headlong, to be directed by Rupert Goold, is ‘a timely indictment from a writer who is genuinely of the young generation at the generation older than him who he accuses - I’d say with some justification - of a form of debauchery.’  Other highlights further ahead include: a production of Twelfth Night to mark the 80th birthday of former National Theatre director Sir Peter Hall, starring his daughter Rebecca Hall as Viola, as well as plans for participation in the 400th anniversary celebrations of the King James Bible in 2011, with leading actors contributing readings from the Old Testament and the Gospels.  The bulwark of the National’s bid to bring in new audiences - the Travelex £10 season at the Olivier, which Hytner indicated had caused an average newcomer attendance rate of 25 per cent since it was started - continues into its eight season.  Following Hytner's revival of Boucicault's London Assurance, starring Simon Russell Beale, Fiona Shaw and Richard Briers in the Olivier, the new Travelex season opens on 27 April with Marianne Elliott’s revival of Thomas Middleton’s Jacobean tragedy Women Beware Women, starring Harriet Walter and Samuel Barnett. Following that will be a new play by Moira Buffini, Welcome to Thebes, directed by Richard Eyre and opening on 22 June. Hytner described this as a ‘big, exciting political play’ set in a ‘contemporary Third World Thebes pulling itself together after enduring the attentions of an Athens dedicated to intervening in its affairs in the cause of democracy.’ The Olivier season continues in July with Donmar supremo Michael Grandage making his NT debut directing Danton’s Death by Georg Buchner, in a new version by Howard Brenton starring Toby Stephens. The final play of the 2010 £10 season, opening in September, will be Hytner’s own production of Hamlet, with Rory Kinnear in the title role and Clare Higgins as Gertrude. This production will tour in the UK and internationally in 2010.  In the Lyttelton Theatre, the season opens with a previously announced new staging of Bulgakov’s The White Guard, directed by Howard Davies (opening 23 March), it will be followed by a revival of a neglected Terence Rattigan play After the Dance (opening 8 June), directed by Thea Sharrock. Alan Bennett’s The Habit of Art will return to the repertoire in July with a new cast, ahead of a UK tour planned for the autumn.  The Cottesloe sees the transfer of a pair of revivals first seen at Royal & Derngate, Northampton in 2009, Beyond the Horizon by Eugene O’Neill and Spring Storm by Tennessee Williams; this opens on 7 April with the original cast, directed by Laurie Sansom [as reviewed here]. A new play, Love the Sinner by Drew Pautz, directed by Matthew Dunster, which touches on the ordination of gay clergy in the Anglican church. Earthquakes in London, by Mike Bartlett, opens in August. September sees a new piece devised and written by Neil Bartlett and Handspring Puppet Company, the South African puppetry company responsible for the NT hit War Worse.  Looking further ahead, Hytner discussed the £70m plans to enhance and renovate sections of the National Theatre, especially the Cottesloe, the underlying philosophy being ‘to bust out the walls and make this place look one that’s welcoming.’  Public booking for Women Beware Women, Spring Storm, Beyond the Horizon, Love the Sinner and After the Dance will open on 17 February.  Tickets and further info: www.nationaltheatre.org.uk; 020 7452 3000
The artistic director of the National Theatre Nicholas Hytner today announced    forthcoming productions in 2010 at his annual start-of-the-year press    conference.