Seventy stars. Two photographers. One year of unprecedented success for the British theatre.

The Sunday Times Magazine, December 13, 2009

Curtain up

In a year when the world went bust, London theatre has been going boom. More than 3m of us attended plays in the capital alone -- 26% more bottoms on seats than the previous year. Crafted by brilliant writers, directors and all-star casts, the play has become the thing. Our remarkable photographs, shot by Harry Borden and Tom Hunter, over two days in the stalls of the Royal Court Theatre, brought together the very best of our theatrical talent for an unprecedented shoot.

Kelly Brook
The latest face of the West End phenomenon Calendar Girls, based on the story of the Women's Institute ladies who stripped for charity. The play, a celebration of ballsy femininity, is still running at the Noël Coward Theatre and will tour the rest of the country in the New Year. Brook's character draws the short straw and has to bare all first. Not typecasting, then.

Anna Friel and Sir Michael Gambon
As Holly GoLightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's, the former Brooksider Friel (pictured on this magazine's cover) returned from American TV to enhance her reputation as a stage actress. One of Gambon's favourite playwrights, Harold Pinter, passed away at the end of last year. Until January, Gambon was starring as Hirst in Pinter's 1975 play, No Man's Land, at The Duke of York's Theatre with Daviad Walliams and David Bradley.

The Treadaway Twins, Harry and Luke
In the spring, Harry (top left) made his stage debut opposite Luke (bottom left) at the Royal Court in Mark Ravenhill's latest play, Over There, about identical twins who meet after 25 years apart. He can next be seen in a new version of Ibsen's Ghosts at the Duchess Theatre in February. Luke, who returns to the screen in Heartless and Clash of the Titans, is currently filming The Whistleblower.

Harry Lloyd
He may be better-known as Will Scarlett, Nottingham's prettiest outlaw in BBC1's Robin Hood, but Lloyd (bottom centre) caused quite a stir in the West End revival of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge -- and is set to do the same in his next role as a rent boy in The Little Dog Laughed, which opens at the Garrick in January.

Ben Whishaw
Whishaw (above) was only just out of Rada when Sir Trevor Nunn gave him the title role in his young-cast production of Hamlet at the Old Vic in 2004. It earned Whishaw a Laurence Olivier award nomination -- and since then he has never looked back. At the moment he is simultaneously breaking hearts in the screen biopic about John Keats, and storming the stage at the Royal Court in Mike Bartlett's new play, Cock.

Tara Fitzgerald
A frequent visitor to the stage, Fitzgerald (far left) was last seen at the Donmar Warehouse in A Doll's House. She's now part of the all-star cast in Martin Crimp's version of Molière's 17th-century classic The Misanthrope, at the Comedy Theatre with ...

Damian Lewis
Familiar to many as Major Richard Winters in the second-world-war miniseries Band Of Brothers, Lewis (left, centre) is no stranger to the stage. He is returning in typically handsome form as Alceste, a playwright who falls in love with a glamorous American film star, played by ...

Keira Knightley
This is a stage debut for the Hollywood actress (left). But with a playwright mother, Sharman Macdonald, and an actor father, Will Knightley, she's set to prove theatre is in her blood too.

Jessica Hynes
Hynes (right) received a Tony nomination for her part in the Old Vic's revival of Sir Alan Ayckbourn's The Norman.

Simon McBurney
The visionary director (left) and co-founder of the theatre company Complicite made a rare stage appearance as hapless servant Clov in his own production of Samuel Beckett's Engame at the Duchess Theatre. He is seen here with his co-stars.

Miriam Margolyes
She may have been consigned to a dustbin as Nell in Endgame, but otherwise Margolyes (centre) is still going very strong.

Mark Rylance
The inaugural artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe, Rylance (right) has not only played most of Shakespeare's great roles himself, but continues to defy superlatives for whatever part he takes on. He won plaudits for his charismatic gypsy, Johnny, in Ian Rickson's production of Jerusalem, Jez Butterworth's award-winning play. It transfers from the Royal Court to the Apollo Theatre in January.

Patrick Stewart
His escape from space is complete. This year, Stewart (left) has been Claudius to David Tennant's Hamlet, and Vladimir to Sir Ian McKellen's Estragon in the Theatre Royal's box-office sesllout, Waiting for Godot.

Jaime Winstone
After following her father, Ray, onto the screen in films such as Bullet Boy, Winstone (right) made her stage debut this year in Hampstead Theatre's revival of Philip Ridley's play The Fastest Clock in the Universe.

Ruth Wilson
Having made her name in the TV miniseries Jane Eyre, Wilson (top left) more than held her own opposite Rachel Weisz in the Donmar's production of A Streetcar Named Desire.

Juliet Stevenson
Her role as a wheelchair-bound violinist with MS in Tom Kempinksi's Duet for One at the Almeida Theatre was a triumphant return to the stage for Stevenson (top centre).

Lindsey Marshal
Marshal (bottom left) co-starred in Richard Greenberg's Three Days of Rain at the Apollo.

Hayley Atwell
Atwell (left) embodied the object of incestuous lust in A View from the Bridge at The Duke of York's Theatre.

Sir Derek Jacobi
Jacobi (above right) played Malvolio in the Donmar Warehouse's Twelfth Night at Wyndham's Theatre.

Sir Ian McKellen
The actor (above left), known to half the world as Gandalf, spent much of the year in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. There wasn't a single ticket unsold -- breaking all previous Theatre Royal Haymarket records. He returns to the role in January. "There does seem to be more theatre available in London than in most or all cities in the world," he says. "Clearly, there is something special going on."

Backstage Superstars

Sean Mathias, artistic director of the Theatre Royal Haymarket; his latest hits include Waiting for Godot and Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Lucy Kirkwood, whose play It Felt Empty ... was a smash hit for Clean Break at Arcola Theatre.

Lee Hall, who wrote the Billy Elliot screenplay and then adapted it for the stage, has his latest work, The Pitmen Painters, at the National's Lyttleton Theatre until February 2010.

Laura Wade's next play, Posh, will be at the Royal Court in April.

Dominic Cooke, artistic director of the Royal Court Theatre.

Polly Stenham is hailed as the new face of British Theatre. Her play Tusk Tusk appeared at the Royal Court in the spring.

Natalie Abrahami, co-artistic director of the Gate Theatre.

Bijan Sheibani, artistic director of ATC (Actors Touring Company).

David Lan, award-winning artistic director of the Young Vic.

Samuel Adamson wrote the new stage adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Josie Rourke, artistic director of west London's Bush Theatre.

Tim Roseman, co-artistic director of Battersea's Theatre503.

Sean Holmes, the new artistic director at the Lyric Hammersmith, kicked off the autumn season with a revival of Trevor Griffith's Comedians.

Nicholas Kent, artistic director of the Tricycle Theatre.

Roxana Silbert directed the plays Roaring Trade an Orphans at Soho Theatre in 2009.

Dominic Dromgoole, artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe.

Michael Boyd, artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Stella Feehily's play Dreams of Violence received its premiere at Soho Theatre in the summer.

Max Stafford-Clark, artistic director of Out of Joint.

Jamie Lloyd, who directed Three Days of Rain at the Apollo, returns in January with The Little Dog Laughed at the Garrick.

Rupert Goold, artistic director of Headlong Theatre, is behind the Royal Court's smash-hit play Enron, which transfers to the Noël Coward Theatre next month.

Lucy Morrison, head of artistic programme at Clean Break.

Mark Ravenhill, the controversial playwright, has had a great year with Nation at the National, Over There at the Royal Court and The Experiment at Southwark Playhouse.

Tamara Harvey directed the premiere of Alistair McGowan's Timing at the King's Head theatre.

Roy Williams's latest play, Category B, part of the Not Black and White season, is on for one more week at the Tricycle Theatre.

Lisa Goldman, artistic director of Soho Theatre.

Christopher Hampton, one of Britain's leading playwrights. His adaptation of Judgment Day was at the Almeida Theatre recently.

Sir Trevor Nunn directed A Little Night Music at the Garrick in the spring and Inherit the Wind at the Old Vic in the autumn.

Femi Etufowoju, Jr., artistic director of Tiata Fahodzi, a British-African theatre company that commissions new writing.

Atiha Sen Gupta's play, What Fatima Did ... about a Muslim girl's decision to wear a hijab at school, headlined Hampstead Theatre's autumn season.

Howard Davies, award-winning theatre director, whose Gethsemane was at the National's Cottesloe Theatre in the spring.

Dennis Kelly's Orphans was at Soho Theatre in the autumn.

Sir Peter Hall, director emeritus at the Rose Theatre, Kingston, is directing Dame Judi Dench in A Midsummer Night's Dream there in February.

Marianne Elliott, associate director at the National Theatre, whose War Horse is currently at the New London Theatre.

Michael Attenborough, artistic director at the Almeida.

Lucy Prebble's play, Enron, was one of the year's biggest hits.

Ian Rickson directed this year's monster hit Jerusalem, which starts a West End run at the Apollo Theatre on January 28.

Thea Sharrock, one of the hottest young directors in British theatre, directs Keira Knightley and co. in The Misanthrope at the Comedy Theatre.

Michael Grandage, the artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse, has, in 2009 alone, lured everyone from Rachel Weisz to Jude Law on to the stage. Grandage must be the best-connected man in British theatre.

Caption: "It makes complete sense that Keira Knightley's up on stage. I wish more film stars would make that leap." -- Kevin Spacey.

What a performance

In spite of the hard times, British theatre is flourishing, says Jasper Rees

by Jasper Rees, The Sunday Times Magazine, December 13, 2009

As our belts tightened this year, a night out at the theatre turned out to be a necessity, not a luxury, for huge numbers of us. London theatre alone has seen revenues of more than £81m this year, an increase of nearly 40% on the year before. But then theatre has always performed robustly in times of trouble. "Historically, theatre is always the last place to be affected in a recession," explains the director Michael Grandage.

This year that's certainly been the case with the theatre of which Grandage is artistic director. The Donmar Warehouse recently completed a year-long reduced-price residency in the West End which, across four hit shows including Derek Jacobi in Twelfth Night and Judi Dench in Mishima, has contributed spectacularly to the West End's box-office health.

The actors, writers and directors photographed on these pages at the Royal Court have contributed to what the Society of London Theatres (Solt) is branding the Year of the Play in its Celebrate the Play! campaign. It was an appropriate venue, as it has staged the year's most successful new plays: Enron by 28-year-old Lucy Prebble, an account of the biggest fraud in history, and Jerusalem, Jez Butterworth's wonderfully baggy state-of-rural-England play.

This year there has been so much that seemed unmissable: the Donmar shows, the Court plays and War Horse with its remarkable puppetry, which moved to the West End from the National Theatre -- where The Habit of Art, Alan Bennett's latest, has just taken up a no-doubt lengthy residence. And while new writers abound, dead ones have been doing their bit too. Beckett has been represented not just by Waiting for Godot but also Endgame starring the indomitably brilliant Mark Rylance.

None of these are, on the face of it, commercial plays. But then the current climate has been shaped by a body of artistic directors and producers being prepared to back a dark horse. Risks have come in many forms. David Tennant missed much of his London run as the Royal Shakespeare Company's latest Hamlet due to illness, but legions of Doctor Who fans went anyway to watch his understudy.

And then there was Lenny Henry's stage debut as Othello, a role in which he astounded even more people than Law did. And now Keira Knightley, who might have been thought a little too shy for the stage, has gamely stepped off -- set to play a screen star in an update of Molière's The Misanthrope.

"It's great when actors who have reached a certain amount of attention in cinema return to the stage or start a stage career," says Kevin Spacey. "I'm afraid there are not enough people like Keira who are willing to take that leap." As the artistic director of the Old Vic, no star from the foreign land that is Hollywood has made a more dramatic commitment to the London stage. Currently starring in Inherit the Wind at the Old Vic, Spacey is the most visible evidence that the siren song of the London stage is uniquely alluring, not only for actors but also audiences, who flock along from far and wide.

As production after production posts healthy balance sheets, the London theatre is replenishing its future. "The biggest hurdle is to get people of my age who don't go to the theatre," says Prebble. "We offer a live experience that you don't get from DVD box sets and PlayStation. But if someone goes once and it's not very good, there's no real incentive to try again."

Spectrum

47 - Cover Story: For this stunning 16-page photographic special, commissioning editor Ria Higgins gathered together Britain's most revered actors, directors and playwrights and the young stars who are following in their footsteps. Included: Kevin Spacey, Keira Knightley, Anna Friel, Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Michael Gambon.