Michael Grandage on Daniel Radcliffe and £10 tickets

What made you want to move on from the Donmar?

After five years running Sheffield theatres and 10 years as Artistic Director at the Donmar, I knew I didn’t want to do anymore building-based work. I wanted to have the freedom to work in the West End and New York, produce and direct films and put on shows in found spaces. My Donmar colleague James Bierman and I wanted to set up a building-less company – and we also wanted to see if we could do things in the commercial world similar to what we had done at the Donmar, particularly accessible work that reaches out to a younger generation.

How have you tried to make the season as accessible as possible?

Mainly through our £10 ticket scheme. After all the discussions for the debut West End season we ended up with seven lead actors [Simon Russell Beale, Ben Whishaw, Judi Dench, Daniel Radcliffe, Sheridan Smith, David Walliams and Jude Law; pictured below] and five plays. From there, we looked at how we could establish the core value of access by budgeting for a quarter of the seats being £10. We knew that there are always people in the West End who can afford the top price and that group, in the end, have to subsidize the £10 seats.

What was the thinking behind casting Daniel Radcliffe in Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan?

I hope the match of Daniel Radcliffe and Martin McDonagh will reach out to a whole range of people – Daniel’s link to the Harry Potter films brings a huge following with him. It’s up to us to engage with that following. I saw him in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, on Broadway, and he had this amazing energy. He never missed a show and has an honour and duty to his audience that I love.