Cuts come just as theatre starts to fulfil its promise

There’s no point mincing words. In my first decade of reviewing for The Daily Telegraph, Hampstead Theatre fast became a source of pity, derision and financial concern.

One of the early recipients of Lottery money, enabling it to upscale in 2003 from its fringey portable-cabin home of 40 years to a deluxe, purpose-built venue, it should have gone from strength to strength, cementing a reputation for talent-spotting (nurturing the likes of Michael Frayn and Mike Leigh).

Instead, it seemed to lurch from dud to dud. “It’s time for a coup at Hampstead,” ran one newspaper headline in 2008, following widely panned stinker The President’s Holiday.

It’s no hyperbole to say that since 2010, Edward Hall has turned this listing vessel’s fortunes round, set it on a coherent artistic course and restored its fortunes as one of London’s flagship new writing venues.

Where other comparable buildings – such as the Bush and Soho theatres – have struggled of late to assert strong identities, with Hampstead the packed houses attest to a restored confidence; stars of the calibre of Maureen Lipman and Roger Allam have been eager to sign up for its risk-taking premieres.

In the past few months alone, I have seen some superlative work, from an epic family drama about East End Jewish immigrants in Filthy Business, past a bold, topically pressing piece revisiting the horrors of occupied Iraq, to its current American import, Gloria, which contains one of the most perturbing narrative twists I’ve seen in recent times. And that’s just on the main-stage; there’s a stash of new writing being developed in the downstairs studio space kept from the prying eyes of critics.

To have awarded Hampstead a cut in funding is not just a slap in the face for Hall and his team: it’s little short of scandalous, given the theatre’s troubled history.

It smacks of the Arts Council resuming a futile agenda of diminishing support for the kind of intelligent and populist playwriting so many of us want to see.

Through the financial data, a vague yearning for modish “new forms” is apparent but with little real sense of an exciting new theatrical order emerging. How else to explain the generous sums bestowed on that ageing avant-garde troupe Forced Entertainment or the newly revived, tub-thumping lefty company Red Ladder?

A greater weighting toward the regions, touring and diversity is welcome enough, but not if it’s at the expense of first-class regimes like the one Hampstead is lucky to have. It would be a wretched state of affairs if Hall and co decided to move on to other challenges and this tough-to-crack venue was thrown back into the doldrums.