“I believe in neither a director’s nor a writer’s theatre, but a theatre of intelligent audiences.”

— Kenneth Tynan

Letter to George Devine (10 March 1964), printed in Kenneth Tynan : A Life by Dominic Shellard , p. 292
Context: I believe in neither a director’s nor a writer’s theatre, but a theatre of intelligent audiences. I count myself as a member of an intelligent audience, and I wrote to you as such. That you should disagree with me I can understand, but that you should resent my expressing my opinions is something that frankly amazes me. I thought we had outgrown the idea of theatre as a mystic rite born of secret communion between author, director, actors and an empty auditorium.

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English theatre critic and writer 1927–1980

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“Plays by Alan Ayckbourn have been attracting larger audiences in the regional theatres than those of Shakespeare.”

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“I believe in neither a director’s nor a writer’s theatre, but a theatre of intelligent audiences.”

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