Kenneth Tynan theatre critic until mid-1963 when he joined the National Theatre. In 1963, Laurence Olivier became the British National Theatre Company's first artistic director. Tynan had been highly dismissive of Olivier's achievements as artistic director of the Chichester Festival Theatre, which had opened in 1962, but he recommended himself for the role of literary manager. Olivier was initially outraged by Tynan's presumption but Olivier's wife, Joan Plowright, convinced him that Tynan would be an asset at the National Theatre Company, then based at the Old Vic theatre. When he became the National Theatre's literary manager, Tynan ceased to be the theatre
Bill Mitchell (artistic director) In 2006, he was made an honorary Fellow of Falmouth University. Mitchell won the Best Director award at the Theatre Awards UK in 2011 for "The Passion", a joint production between National Theatre Wales and Wildworks. In 2015, Mitchell worked with Lost Gardens of Heligan on a show called "100: The Day Our World Changed" to commemorate local people who died in WW1. Mitchell was diagnosed with cancer in 2015, but continued to work up to his death on "Wolf’s Child" which was performed at Trelowarren Estate in Cornwall in July 2017. Bill Mitchell (artistic director) Bill Mitchell (2 December