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
Royal National Theatre over the Memorial Theatre at Stratford, and to create the permanent Royal Shakespeare Company, in 1960, also establishing a new RSC base at the Aldwych Theatre for transfers to the West End. He was artistic director at the National Theatre between 1973 and 1988; and continued to direct major performances for both the National and the RSC as well as running his own company at The Old Vic and summer seasons at the Theatre Royal, Bath. In 2008, he opened a new theatre, The Rose, and remains its "director emeritus". One of the National's associate directors, Richard Eyre became artistic