National Theatre Public Acts production The Cyclops at Cast in Doncaster

However, in order to fulfil its contract with the rest of the nation, given that all of us pay for it, those in charge of the National Theatre have, certainly for the past decade-or-so, been thinking about how to best meet its obligation to the UK population without a London postcode.

In 2009 the first major step towards this was the inauguration of NT Live. Phedre, starring Helen Mirren, was the first production that was performed on the stage of the National and screen simultaneously to cinemas across the UK. The result was 50,000 people were able to see that one performance, rather than the 1,100 limit inside the Olivier auditorium. Today the number of venues showing NT Live performances has grown to around 700.

Five years ago the National decided to take its civic responsibilities a step further and founded Public Acts, which was established to ‘create extraordinary acts of theatre and community’. The idea was that the National would bring together theatres and community organisations across the UK to create productions, often with people taking part in theatre for the first time, allowing them to take part in regular workshops, theatre trips and creative and social gatherings.

Back in 2018 the first Public Acts show was Pericles, written by the now Olivier-award winning Sheffield playwright Chris Bush, whose Standing at the Sky’s Edge won the Olivier for best musical earlier this month. Since then Public Acts has visited Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch with a production of As You Like It and Cast at Doncaster with a version of Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle.

You may have noticed the date when Public Acts began – 2018. That means, of course, for two of its five, short, years, the scheme was plagued by the pandemic. The Caucasian Chalk Circle was hit by the Covid shutdown. “It didn’t slow down this vital community engagement programme,” says a spokesperson. “The postponement of Doncastrian Chalk Circle in 2020 led to Doncaster’s Public Acts community creating their own cabaret, The Magic of Wild Heather.”

Over the past few months Public Acts has been taking on its most ambitious and far-reaching project to date: a nationwide re-imagining of The Odyssey. A spokesman said: “The journey of Odysseus tells a universal story of endurance, loss, healing and of finding a way forward together.”

It feels like the perfect story for our times. For the project, Public Acts has worked in collaboration with four partners across the country to bring this story to life: Restoke in Stoke-on-Trent (episode one: The Lotus Eaters), CAST in Doncaster (episode two: The Cyclops), Trowbridge Town Hall in Trowbridge (episode three: The Four Winds) and Sunderland Culture & Empire in Sunderland (episode four: The Island of the Sun).

Odyssey will be told in five episodes, with episodes one to four created by and performed at each of the partner venues, starting in April. A local writer from each location has adapted an episode of Odysseus’ journey, putting their own spin on Homer’s classic, helping to ensure an authentic and representative tale for their area. The Doncaster episode is written by Yorkshire-born Tajinder Singh-Hayer.

Chris Bush, who is writing episode five, The Underworld, has been dramaturg across the whole project. For Bush, the most important ingredient for the success of the project is, ‘creative collaboration, and enabling people to tell stories in a way that is inherently truthful to them and the place they find themselves in’.

Episode five: The Underworld, will be performed as a full-scale musical on the Olivier stage over the August bank holiday weekend at the National Theatre and will feature community performers from all four partner venues.

Episode Two: The Cyclops is at Cast, Doncaster, April 15 and 16.

castindoncaster.com