I was having a panic attack over King’s Head Theatre moving next door to a 220-seat purpose-built theatre. Of course, it would no longer be a pub theatre, but it would retain the name and I hoped it would be continuing the legacy left by former Artistic Director Adam Spreadbury-Maher. 

Who better to answer these questions than incoming Artistic Directors Mark Ravenhill and Hannah Price? The pair have complementary skills, with Ravenhill’s high profile work as a theatre maker, and Price as the self-confessed techno nerd who has a huge body of work as a director. 

Ravenhill arrives patting his lower abs. He’s just come from a Pilates class and he’s feeling it. He looks pretty fit at 55, not bad for someone who nearly died a few months after the advent of ‘Shopping and Fu**ing’, but we’ll come to that. Hannah is sympathetic but as the pair get themselves comfortable on the benches at King’s Head pub theatre, we pare back the conversation to discuss the last twenty or so years of change in theatre. 

Looking back at Ravenhill’s seminal play ‘Shopping and Fu**ing’ premiering in 1996 he recalls that he expected it to go into the Finborough (where it had a first reading in 95) but it went into The Royal Court instead. As the conversation progresses, it seems that everything he touches turns to gold.

Ravenhill comments on how the queer scene has moved on from those days. “It’s broader now, in the sense of gender fluidity, trans people are a section of the queer community”. King’s Head has traditionally concentrated on gay men, but the pair are very keen to embrace a broader scope. “To include the whole spectrum that the rainbow umbrella embodies” explains Ravenhill.

On the personal front, he comments that he’s “older now” and adds that “at the time of the play, there was no Antiretroviral, I thought I had only two or three years to live, dying was a medical fact.” He’s disarmingly honest and funny too. “I was planning to be the James Dean of theatre but now I’m 55 and really enjoying life.” Like a mantra, he believes “celebrating and enjoying life is one of the biggest things.” 

Coronavirus has wrought many other changes. Ravenhill mentions that it’s closed theatre for longer than the world wars and the plague. Price is particularly conscious of the impact on all the people who work in theatre and particularly at King’s Head. As a freelancer herself she feels it’s “desperately sad to see how many people moved out of theatre, had livelihoods decimated” but she is not to be beaten. “We want to work out how we can bring back those people, how we can retain them in the future, creating work and employing people; it’s a big ambition.” 

It’s all about mitigating risk and making new working models. Ideas range from producing some shorter plays to making the space work hard with a lot of activity. At the same time Price has much innovation to bring with her experience of digital media. “How do we bring in that digital element?” she questions. 

Ravenhill interjects here to explain proudly that “Hannah won a BAFTA for directing video games.” Price modestly corrects him. “The team did!” It seems that Ravenhill is technologically at the “other end of the spectrum”, but both are extremely keen to utilise technology on the stage. “Mark and I are bringing in voices which are unheard across the board which includes people making digital work,” says Price. She wants to encourage smaller companies to be more experimental and will support them in using digital tools. 

Again, Ravenhill interjects to explain that they have managed to get “a massive weapon … one of the leaders in the field”. You can almost feel Price squirming as her brilliance is praised. It’s a growing area which is constantly changing, but Price has her ear to the ground and is always picking up on what’s happening now.  “I love it because it’s changing all the time, so there are always new developments which we need to understand.” 

Price will also direct some of her own work at the theatre, but Ravenhill will be mentoring “to encourage and to be an advocate for a new generation of writers”. He hopes his own plays “will continue being in big theatres, TV and film” so that he will be able to subsidise some of the work at the King´s Head.

When asked what theatre is for, Price was emphatic. “It’s not for anything, it’s an art form. People create it. They want it to be part of shaping our world and how we understand it. Naturally theatre is political, but the focus changes according to the artist’s intentions, probing our understanding and sometimes moving the parameters.” Ravenhill agrees and says that “it’s beautiful bringing people together and above all else it’s got to be pleasurable; there are all sorts of different types of enjoyment.”

“King’s Head can actually create a sense of a community in our audience” says Ravenhill. “We want to have audiences return and recognise each other and talk to each other. Not as an exclusive club but everyone coming to enjoy everything from the lightest piece of cabaret to a variety of other work.”

“We’re finding lots of LGBTQ+ diverse voices and amplifying that as much as possible” he adds. When asked if the work will continue to be a welcoming venue for both queer and heterosexuals his answer is uncompromising. “It’s predoinantly LGBTQ+ but we’ll look at the strange murky world of heterosexuals from time to time but our centre, our core will be LGBTQ+”. An amusing reversal.

Price, on the other hand suggests that they will be inclusive. Ravenhill is not to be thwarted. “Audiences will be predominantly queer, but we’ll also want to see stories about mum and dad and straight friends from time to time.” More than this they are keen to see a range of work. “Bold, inclusive, bright, irreverent, everything that comes with the existing space and taking it forward” says Price, “building on the legacy”. 

She explains that they will be keeping links with pub theatres. Maybe giving a production premiering in a pub theatre a second outing. “Build up a real head of steam” says Ravenhill “take something really exciting giving it the next step and maybe it goes on beyond that.”

Price comments on the importance of pub theatres. “They are a central part of the ecology for writers and directors. They’ve been a huge part of how I’ve learnt to do anything, and I still direct in pub theatres. They give people a chance to do some things that they wouldn’t necessarily be able to do elsewhere. You don’t have that financial risk.”

There follows a competition.

Ravenhill: “I worked at Finborough, Old Red Lion, and King’s Head.”

Price: “I worked at Upstairs at the Gatehouse, White Bear, Pentameters, Finborough, 503, The Other Room, and the Marlborough”.

Ravenhill: “I worked at a Bristol pub theatre which became the Tobacco Factory.”

(Of course, it did – Ravenhill’s Midas effect.) Clearly, these intimate theatres have been instrumental in both of their careers.

When King’s Head moves into the larger theatre their focus will be on developing audiences, but it might take time depending on the direction of the Pandemic. Both are nervous about any possible impact of further closures. These are some of the major concerns, but they are going to fully utilise the space and the space itself will dictate whether it retains the intimate feel of a pub theatre.

The intention is to amplify the work whilst retaining much of the work that has gone before such as the Playmill festival and the Director’s Scheme (with Price’s leadership). Ravenhill might also be developing something for writers, but the pair have been in talks with Theatre503 who have a centre for early career playwrights opening in Nine Elms in 2023. The pair are very keen to keep doors open but right now they aren’t certain of what they can deliver.

“We don’t have resources of the royal court or even the Bush with their targeted way of mentoring young writers” says Ravenhill. “We don’t want to raise expectation when we cannot offer support to the same degree as the Bush or Theatre503.” It’s about keeping the industry as healthy as possible. 

Even if guarantees cannot be made, it seems likely that opera will be safe at King’s Head. Ravenhill wrote the opera The Coronation of Poppea for Opera UpClose and is hugely enthusiastic about the genre. “I didn’t know much about opera” he explains “until I got a job front of house at the coliseum in the early 90s.” He watched an opera every night. “Must have watched about 30 operas. People left expensive programmes on their seats, I’d read them on the tube, line them up in my bedroom. It was like 18 months of night school. I started directing bits and bobs and talking to Adam (at King’s Head) about opera in the broader sense.”

“I’m going to convert Hannah to opera and she’s going to teach me about technology” Says Ravenhill.

“I like opera!” counters Price.

“We’ll bring more opera to King’s” states Ravenhill. “I saw the work of a young composer at the Tête à Tête who I think would write a great new opera for the King’s Head”. Ideas are coming out thick and fast. It’s already been announced that King’s Head will have a Summer Queer School in which young people who identify as LGBTQ+ will be taught a queer curriculum not included in mainstream schooling. 

“It will offer 15 to 20 young people a daily programme dependent on raising a lot of money” says Ravenhill. “It might include Mary Beard’s love in antiquity, talks about Alan Turing or say, Lesbian culture in Trinidad. It will include talks and discussions with an international input giving a sense of history of culture. And it’s anti section 28.” 

It gets fun when Ravenhill starts to throw out some of his ideas about the format, (being a little tongue in cheek). “Audiences can watch it live as a classroom performance piece available digitally. Teaching materials to be used in real schools. Matching resources for the work. School bell. Head teacher. Board of governors – in my head I’ve already cast Ian McKellen in the role. In the last session everybody graduates from King’s Head School. 

“It’s a mini festival in itself” he concludes. Then adds another idea. “We could write a school song with Andrew Lloyd Webber. Maybe a prefect and a school tie …”

Ravenhill has done every form of theatre from starting out as an actor pacing the Barbican in a traditional panto to being an Associate Artist of the National Theatre. In the early days his work was often considered hugely controversial and he clearly believes that the fight is not over, there are still important LGBTQ+ stories which need to be told.

The last thing he did was a musical at the RSC, The Boy in the Dress in a collaboration with Robbie Williams with an audience of 1200 people a night. “Grandads, Grannies, Mums, Dads and kids … don’t think they were too damaged by it” he says.

Price has directed heaps of new writing and is currently working on a huge immersive “project with the Tower of London”. Twenty million people played her latest video game. “I want to keep learning, being challenged, finding new forms, listening and evolving: and bringing those skills back into the Kings Head’.

Last word goes to Ravenhill. “I like audiences. I want them to own the space. I don’t really feel a show is a show until it’s sold out.”

I can’t help thinking that Price is a fantastic foil to Ravenhill’s apparent love of controversy and fighting spirit. The pair are a great match in personality as well as in innovation to take the theatre forward in its new venture. It’s a great relief to know that the doors are open at King’s Head Theatre.

 Heather Jeffery is Editor of London Pub Theatres Magazine/Interview Published 24 August 2021

 King's Head Theatre