Our History
The Young Vic theatre began its life as an offshoot of the Old Vic - the first residence of the National Theatre (then the Royal National Theatre) under Laurence Olivier.
'Here we think to develop plays for young audiences, an experimental workshop for authors, actors and producers.' Laurence Olivier
The company was led by Frank Dunlop (1927 - 2026), a transformative force in British theatre who defined the spirit and purpose of the Young Vic. A Royal National Theatre Associate Director and founder of the Pop Theatre in Edinburgh, Dunlop wanted to create a new kind of theatre for a new generation - one that was unconventional, classless, open, circus-like and cheap. He was inspired by influential French actor and director Jean Vilar, who claimed that theatre should be as indispensable to life as bread and wine. The Young Vic was conceived as a 'paperback' theatre, where high-quality work would be made available to all at low cost. Dunlop’s original vision and his belief that great theatre should be bold, international, socially engaged and available to everyone still resonates deeply with our endeavour today.
The theatre was built on The Cut just down the road from the Old Vic, on the bomb-site of a former butcher’s shop and bakery where 54 people sheltering had died during the Second World War. The theatre building was designed by Bill Howell. It was erected at a cost of £60,000 and was intended to last for just five years.
30 years later, by 2000, the fabric of the supposedly temporary theatre was crumbling. Visionary architects, Haworth Tompkins, led the redesign of the theatre, creating the flagship venue it is recognised as today. Because the original innovative thrust stage auditorium had proved a potent performance space and the old butchers shop foyer (a lone survivor of wartime bombing) an important vessel of communal memory, the rebuilding project re-imagined a new theatre grown around these two fragments, upgrading the auditorium for even greater theatrical flexibility and adding an enlarged foyer bar, two new studio theatres and much improved support spaces.
Since its opening the new Young Vic has become a central part of London’s cultural life and one of the world’s most discussed theatre.
