(AGENPARL) - Roma, 26 Febbraio 2026 - (AGENPARL) – Thu 26 February 2026 26 February 2026
JENNIE LEE LECTURE 2026
BY INDHU RUBASINGHAM, DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL THEATRE
It’s an honour to deliver this lecture celebrating Jennie Lee.
A woman who gave decades of passionate and often controversial commitment to the arts,
fuelled by the radical belief that people of all ages and classes deserved access to the very
best in art.
She was incredibly proud of all that Britain had achieved in arts and culture, and recognised –
as many of us do – that creative arts are one of our supreme contributions to the world.
She campaigned for governments to give artists both their provision and their freedom:
including the freedom to create art even if their funders disapproved.
She wanted a world that allowed artists to develop work which challenged as well as
entertained.
This model – offering generosity whilst anticipating built-in friction – is one which is harder for
us to absorb today.
Because, in contrast, we now live in a world where we can surround ourselves with information
that reinforces our individual views; where algorithms anticipate and guide our every click; and
where nearly everything can be personalised to fit our own preferences.
I’m struck by something the filmmaker Daniel Kwan said in a piece in the New Yorker.
He argued that humanity’s most important creation wasn’t the internet or agriculture, but the
collective stories we tell to understand ourselves, and each other. Kwan says that it’s these
stories which allow us to trust each other, and to build up the systems and institutes that allow
us to live together in societies.
We now live in a world divided by thriving disinformation, populist politics, alternate realities
and, surprisingly, loneliness.
Theatre is becoming one of the few remaining places where we gather and face complexity
together, where we embrace nuance.
It is the place, as Jennie Lee recognised, which counteracts the isolation modern life creates.
She wrote that by making art, we “track down the loneliness among communities of people,
whether old or young, experienced in the arts or rather shyly making their first tentative
approach.”
In writing this lecture and thinking about her life, I’ve been confronted by the ambition of Jennie
Lee’s vision, and the many ways in which today’s world makes that vision difficult to fulfil.
That is what I want to explore today.
Jennie Lee became a MP in 1929 at the age of just 24.
She was Britain’s youngest woman MP; so young, in fact, that the Lanarkshire by-election
which brought her to Parliament was the first election in which she could herself cast a vote.
The law bringing women’s voting age from 30 to 21, the same as men, had only been passed
less than a year before.
Her long journey from student activist to the first Minister for Arts in the UK was an
extraordinary triumph over a hostile and at times deeply misogynistic political culture. As
Britain’s first Minister for Arts, she helped secure long-term funding for culture, ensuring that it
remained an integral part of public life.
Her vision was radical. She understood that the arts were not just a luxury for the few, but for
everyone: she saw them as a vital force for unity and for dialogue – even in a time of financial
bleakness for post-war Britain.
Jennie Lee knew that democracy was not only built in parliaments and polling stations but also
in theatres, galleries, libraries, and civic centres.
She spoke of how “in any civilised community the arts, serious or comic, light or demanding,
must occupy a central place. Their enjoyment should not be regarded as remote from
everyday life.”
One of her most radical ideas, and one which many of us uphold today, was that the pursuit of
artistic excellence does not need to come at the expense of enabling greater access to the
arts, that we must bring the best to the most.
Jennie Lee also recognised the arts were interlinked. She understood that world-class
institutions and emerging amateur artists are not in competition; that grand stages and village
halls, national galleries and local choirs nourish each other.
The whole is greater and stronger than the sum of its parts.
Her striving also left its mark on this building. On our stage, she appeared in our 2024
production of Tim Price’s new play about Nye Bevan, in which she was brought to life so
brilliantly by Sharon Small, who I’m really pleased is here with us today.
But in real life, in the mid-1960s, the National Theatre was awaiting its new building on the
South Bank. Construction finally started in 1969 and was completed in the heatwave of 1976.
As Patricia Hollis said in her biography of Jennie Lee: “The project had suffered many issues:
revolving stages that would not revolve, generators that did not generate, and an overspend of
more than £16 million.”
Jennie Lee constantly championed the NT’s construction through delays, sneering and jabs
from opposition politicians. During one heated exchange in the House of Commons, she told
everyone that if they could not build a splendid theatre themselves, they all ought to jump in the
Thames.
She had a clear view on how to make the building work hard to create access. She wanted to
increase the Lyttelton Theatre’s capacity by 20%, a move much opposed by the architect
Denys Lasdun, who feared it would compromise the quality of the design and the theatrical
experience. But Lee was not swayed.
She also saw the importance of having a radically different studio theatre as part of the plans,
which is where we are today, in the Dorfman Theatre.
Yet, as I reflected on her incredible contribution in preparation for this lecture, I found myself
asking: where is the spirit of Jennie Lee in our sector today?
I feel immense gratitude to what Jennie Lee fought for.
Because I am the result of public funding in the arts.
I can trace everything – doors opened, beliefs formed – to moments in time when the world of
theatre became real to me.
At sixteen, it was a work experience placement in stage management at my local theatre,
Nottingham Playhouse, where I became curious about how everything was brought together
for these magical moments on stage. I witnessed the creative ambition and the community of
people that brought it together – much of it underpinned by grants from the Arts Council to
fund regional theatre.
My time there changed the path of my life. Whatever I thought I was going to be ended the
moment I felt the power of theatre.
It was also the first place I encountered contemporary writing. Which felt immediate, relevant
and alive.
It was The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer. A play about the AIDS epidemic which was touring
from the Royal Court in London.
It was political and emotional, and I remember writing down lines from the play on my
programme as soon as the house lights came up. In my teens, growing up in Mansfield, a place
far, far away from New York City and San Francisco, it brought home the terrible injustice of the
AIDS epidemic and the gaslighting and ostracism of the gay community. The anger in this play
demonstrated it all so powerfully – a true call to arms.
It was urgent – I hadn’t realised theatre could be that.
I benefitted from a free university education, studying drama. Persuading my parents a drama
degree was a good idea was challenging enough, and I sometimes wonder if I would have
dared even to ask them, if fees had been part of the picture. None of us had the expectation
that theatre was really a genuine career choice.
My local council funded the fees of my postgraduate year, just as support like that was
disappearing around the country, and shortly afterwards I won an Arts Council grant to train as
an assistant director at Theatre Royal Stratford East.
That opportunity became the foundation of my career.
It wasn’t just funding; it was affirmation. You’re welcome here, you have potential.
And that belief, that radical expansive belief that the arts should be open to everyone, is the
legacy of Jennie Lee.
Walking into Stratford East for the first time, I felt utterly intimidated as well as exhilarated.
Feeling the presence of Joan Littlewood and the legacy of Theatre Workshop. And the thinking
that developed there, about local audiences being crucial to what was on stage, and whose
stories were reflected back from the audience, has stayed with me ever since.
I directed my first show at Theatre Royal Stratford East. I was 24 and it was a piece of new
writing.
I didn’t have innate self-belief. I wasn’t self-made.
I needed nurturing, and space to grow. And it was the Arts Council, and the sector it was
funding, that gave that to me.
My first connections with the National Theatre were through the New Work Studio and they
were exhilarating: most memorably a directors’ workshop with Peter Brook, as well as an
opportunity to spend three weeks workshopping a new play by a first-time writer.
After an extensive freelance career, predominantly in the subsidised sector, I became Artistic
Director of the Kiln, formerly the Tricycle Theatre. The next eleven years in Kilburn allowed me
to work with an excellent team, opening our doors wider, welcoming more voices, more
communities, more possibilities.
None of this was planned. I never expected to become a director, to lead the National Theatre.
To have the honour to deliver this lecture, to an audience of this magnitude.
But it’s important I say this.
This (me) – is the power of a publicly funded opportunity.
The world in which Jennie Lee set out her vision for the arts has changed profoundly.
I believe part of British theatre’s success and global status is because of its unique financial
model – balancing commercial income, state investment and philanthropy.
This is different from the American model, with very little if any state investment, or the
mainland European one, which is mainly based on state subsidies.
Our model – with the right combination of funding and earned income – encourages creative
risk, alongside caring what audiences want.
This delicate equilibrium is already being disturbed.
Public investment, the bedrock of Jennie Lee’s vision, has steadily eroded.
For example, when the National Theatre was established, public funding accounted for 53% of
the operating budget. Today, that figure stands at just 16%. Across the wider sector,
government core funding of cultural organisations has decreased by nearly a fifth since 2009.
And meanwhile, the costs are multiplying, with post-Brexit market pressures on the supply
chain, rising inflation, and the tripling of energy costs. Post-pandemic challenges include a
more complex employment market and changing audience behaviours, influenced, of course,
by the cost-of-living crisis.
These increased costs must be met somewhere.
This has led our sector to a growing dependence on philanthropy. In recent times, our
philanthropic income here at the NT, has become higher than our annual NPO grant from the
Arts Council.
This deepening need from the whole sector comes at a time when arts receive less than 5% of
all charitable donations in the United Kingdom.
And this is happening within a national cultural infrastructure that is, in too many places,
beginning to crumble.
By 1970, Jennie Lee could proudly report that her scheme, Housing the Arts, had helped to fund
over 150 projects around the country. However, this generation of theatre and cultural
buildings created through her vision now requires significant modernisation.
If these buildings are to continue to serve artists and audiences, they cannot be sustained
through business as usual.
Even for an organisation at our scale, it’s challenging enough to replace the roofs of our two
largest auditoria, which we are now doing thanks to urgent support from the government.
We want the work on our stages to blow our audiences away, not the wind and the rain
through a leaking roof.
This need is felt everywhere in London and around the country, where thankfully, organisations
are beginning to receive some much-needed investment, as part of the recent £1.5bn package
generously made available by the DCMS.
But the threat isn’t only financial.
It’s also societal.
We are seeing it in our educational system.
In the last fifteen years, the number of arts GCSEs taken has fallen by 42%, and 41% of schools
do not enter any pupils for drama GCSE. One of the causes of this is a significant drop in
teachers specialising in creative subjects – for example, in just the last three years, there has
been a 60% drop in new drama teachers entering the profession. Research also shows that
fewer people are learning musical instruments.
The number of people taking creative courses at university is also declining at a much faster
rate than other subjects in all parts of the United Kingdom.
The National Education Union has warned of an ‘arts apocalypse’ in education as 93% of
children in state schools are being excluded from the arts due to a lack of funding.
And when these educational opportunities narrow, so does our collective imagination and
understanding of the world.
Culturally, we become entrenched in binaries – left or right, right or wrong, us or them. The
space in between, the spaces where nuance lives, are under threat, becoming places where
people get caught out.
And when everything feels threatened, we gravitate towards places that make us feel safe.
Populist tactics are used across the political spectrum to create outrage. Polarisation drives
insularity. People retreat to join those who look, feel and think like themselves.
The impact on the arts can be profound. When we’re afraid of being judged, cancelled, called
out, we self-censor.
This is dangerous.
If sameness becomes the norm, it nudges us only towards what is predictable and profitable.
I worry we are losing our capacity to understand each other, to be present, and to tolerate
what does not feel comfortable to us.
Artistic excellence does not come from a place of safety and comfort. It comes from venturing
beyond it.
True creativity comes from true vulnerability.
As we face these incredibly powerful threats – theatre matters now more than ever.
It has always had a deep connection to who we are. In Ancient Greece, where theatre was part
of the sacred rites of the God Dionysus, it was performed exclusively by men, to enormous but
elite audiences. But on the hills around the amphitheatres, ordinary people, women, and
enslaved people all watched performances, not only to be entertained, but to confront the
political, ethical, and social dilemmas that defined their world.
In Medieval Britain, the drama of the mystery plays turned Biblical stories into open-air
performances which gave townspeople a collective purpose. These plays allowed craftsmen
to embody sacred figures, turning remote saints into fallible characters who wrestled with
questions of power, freedom, good and evil in everyday language.
In the first English playhouses – built, like our own theatre, on the South Bank, beyond the
respectability of the City – all Shakespeare’s plays, and those of his contemporaries, were
performed in modern dress, familiar on the streets of London.
Allowing settings like mystical far-off Albion, or medieval Italy or Denmark, to look and sound
like contemporary England, let playwrights reveal – and critique – their own time. Theatre was
more than storytelling: it allowed artists to challenge the status quo, voice uncomfortable
truths, and show citizen audiences of all classes the reality and possibility of life.
This remains true today.
Theatre – and the cultural ecosystem we are part of – is key to the UK’s economic growth, our
global reputation and societal wellbeing.
A recent report by SOLT and UK Theatre shows British theatre is an economic powerhouse,
with its annual turnover of £4.4 billion, contributing £2.39 billion in GVA.
We now see culture featured side by side with business on trade missions, showcasing our
work and the influence of our soft power.
In our work in education, our sector provides young people with opportunities to find their
imagination, their voices, and their confidence – whatever they go on to do.
And at the National Theatre, through our digital ambition, we reach people in almost every
country in the world, allowing them to discover the best of British performances.
We also know that theatre is good for you. Research from Oxford University shows that
watching theatre releases endorphins, even when the subject matter is at its most gutwrenchingly tragic.
Audience research done by us between April 2025 and this January has given us more of an
understanding of the experience of seeing our shows.
More than three quarters of audiences felt emotionally engaged; nearly two thirds felt inspired,
uplifted, more reflective. Nearly half of our audiences felt more connected to others.
It’s heartening to prove what we innately always knew.
These are not peripheral benefits. Theatre is an engine to human connection and wellbeing.
In the hush before the curtain rises something in us awakens. A single performance can lift us
up and transform our understanding of ourselves, our country, and our world.
So where does this leave us?
What is it that we should do right now, so that we build on what we have and can look ahead,
creating the future and the work that we all want?
Like Jennie Lee did setting up the infrastructure, creating access and pointing us in the right
direction.
We must now renew our national commitment to investing in cultural infrastructure: buildings,
people, and the creative pipeline.
Across the sector, the need is greater than the resources currently available.
Investing in the arts when money is sparse requires courage. Courage to act, because we
recognise what lies ahead if we do not.
I’m deeply grateful for everything we receive, which underscores the importance of the Arts
Council and the government’s commitment to investing in theatre.
And the incredible generosity of our supporters.
But this is an ongoing challenge, for all of us.
At the heart of this renewed commitment must be investment in backing creative risk and in
new writing.
Playing safe will be the end of us. If we are conservative in style, in content, in process, we might
balance the books today, but we will kill the future of theatre and betray Jennie Lee.
We are seeing a steep reduction across the sector in new writing. I feel this is the clearest and
most troubling sign of what’s happening.
We already know from BBC News research that, in 2024, the number of plays and musicals
staged by the UK’s main subsidised theatres dropped by a third, compared to ten years
previously.
Research done by our New Work Department specifically on new writing further illustrates this.
They looked at new plays and adaptations by subsided producing theatres across the UK, as
well as those in London which regularly programme new writing.
Between 2014 and 2024, there was:
A 70% decline in theatres receiving open-to-all submissions throughout the year
A 76% decline in new writing festivals
A 44% decline in playwriting courses
As well as a 44% decline in new work on stages outside of London, and 30% in London
These numbers paint a stark picture.
Anyone looking at this will conclude that new work is in crisis.
Given our unique position at the National, with our privilege of having a team dedicated to New
Work, we have just about managed to produce similar levels of new work throughout the
decade.
And I commit to safeguarding this during my tenure.
But today I also speak on behalf of the whole industry. Collectively, we are an unusual
connective breathing and pulsing amorphous organism with many veins and arteries, from the
commercial sector which includes the West End, the arena stages and the commercial tours to
the regional playhouses to the small studios, the touring companies, the small local theatre
companies to the fringe venues, the festivals and the national companies – all deeply interlinked and co-dependent, oxygenated by the artistic community.
The success of the large-scale playwright on the Olivier stage, or the West End, or Broadway –
or Hollywood or on TV – is dependent on the good health of every part of this unique ecology.
I fear for the decline in the volume and range of voices on our stages across the country.
I fear the effect this constricting and contracting pipeline will have when it hits our stages within
the next decade.
Without concerted intervention to protect the resources and pathways for our playwrights and
theatre-makers, particularly at the start of their careers, we risk losing writers who want to and
can write for our country’s biggest stages.
We risk losing the future generation-leading playwrights, to take up the baton of the finest our
country has produced, such as Tom Stoppard, Caryl Churchill, David Hare, Alan Bennett, Roy
Williams, David Edgar, Moira Buffini, Beth Steel, Natasha Gordon, Jack Thorne, Rebecca
Lenkiewicz, James Graham, Winsome Pinnock – to name a few.
These writers have carved and reshaped the face of British theatre; like me, so many of their
journeys to our stages were on paths paved by public subsidy, and the opportunity and belief it
enabled.
Our failure to mark this moment as a tipping point risks our betrayal of the legacy, pride and
heritage of this country – of our leading cultural influencer William Shakespeare, our national
playwright.
I believe these trends are the canaries in the coal mine, signalling a quiet warning about the
approaching danger to our democracy, to free speech, to tolerance, to freedom of
imagination.
Let’s make and insist on a new national commitment.
Not a sticking plaster, not emergency relief.
Let’s commit to strengthening nationwide access to theatre.
Let’s boost and rebuild the talent pipeline, and protect the risk-taking that fuels British creativity,
an area of great national pride.
Leonard Bernstein wrote: “The point is […] Art cannot change events. But it can change people.
It can affect people so that they are changed… because people are changed by art – enriched,
ennobled, encouraged – they then act in a way that may affect the course of events… by the
way they vote, they behave, the way they think.”
Jennie Lee called the creation of the National Theatre ‘an act of faith in the future’.
Our responsibility now is to repay that faith.
My wish for the future of the theatre is that my generation dares to be as bold and visionary as
Jennie Lee was.