The National Theatre is overhauling how it stages productions – as its ambitious climate targets mean creatives are having to be even more creative.
After setting itself the goal of achieving net zero as an organisation by 2030, off-stage quietly radical changes are under way.
Sky News was invited to see how the theatre, based in Southbank, central London, has gone about overhauling its approach to staging productions, meeting with some of those who’ve worked on its adaptation of the much-loved children’s classic Ballet Shoes.
While critics have been full of praise for the visual spectacle on-stage, how the whole look was created required a fundamental shift in approach.
“All of the team have had to be on board with reinventing, recutting and reimagining items rather than just making them from scratch,” costume designer Samuel Wyer said.
A new resource they had to work with was the National Theatre Green Store in Bermondsey, southeast London.
The warehouse has more than 131,000 items of costume and almost 22,000 props now housed under one roof so that designers can repurpose items from previous productions to try to cut their carbon footprint.
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It’s a surprisingly satisfying challenge.
Mr Wyer said they were able to “dip and cut clothes… which meant I was finding things even outside my imagination that were more perfect than I could have drawn on a piece of paper”.
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Trying to lead by example, the theatre hopes to demonstrate how the industry needn’t take a fast fashion approach to making sets, props and costumes from scratch.
“I think if it’s demonstrated that we can do things in this way that helps all of us imagine a world where we can use what we’ve got rather than new, new, new, because we need that balance,” Mr Wyer said.
“Theatre is where we come to imagine who we could be.”
‘Every piece has its own little quirks’
Last year, the National set itself targets of 50% of the materials used in its productions having had a previous life, and 65% being repurposed at the end of each production.
For set designer Frankie Bradshaw, hitting those targets has meant working with a lot more repurposed furniture.
“Lots of second-hand cabinets, bookshelves,” she said. “Ordinarily [carpenters] would have been used to building from scratch following a drawing and this has been quite different.
“Every piece has its own little quirks, and they’ve had to adapt their processes to fit that way of working.”
While it’s by no means straightforward, the process is proving rewarding.
“It requires everyone to be a little bit more flexible, a little more patient, but it does mean you can end up with a product you’re a lot more proud of,” Ms Bradshaw added.
Ballet Shoes runs at the National Theatre until Saturday 22 February.
