Playwright calls for return to theatre’s founding vision and to stop ‘angling for West End’

The National Theatre risks “eroding the culture” by shifting away from its founding principles and putting on “semi-commercial” plays “angling for the West End”, the playwright David Hare has said.

The two-time Olivier award winner described the playhouse’s shift from repertory theatre – a system where a resident acting company performs a rotation of plays – as standing in spite of George Bernard Shaw and Harley Granville-Barker’s vision.