The four stacks at the corners of the wooden-clad structure outside the National Theatre may be allusions to Battersea Power Station or to the nearby-each-summer huge inverted purple cow that is the Udderbelly, but the interior is less at odds with its surroundings. The NT’s temporary third space feels much like a slightly smaller (250-seat) version of the Cottesloe, which it replaces for a year or so whilst the latter is refurbished, updated and renamed the Dorfman. It is better insulated both thermically and acoustically than the timbered exterior might suggest (although more acoustic baffling is needed in the foyer/bar area, originally part of the exterior terrace, whose concrete reverberates and amplifies interval chatter). The performance space is built for flexibility; its opening production plays to an audience on three more or less equal sides.
    
Comments about the Shed’s outward form resembling an upturned table may have subconsciously taken their cue from this play’s title, or conversely it may have been scheduled here as a wry self-reference. Tanya Ronder, in workshops at the NT Studio with director (and husband) Rufus Norris stretching over three years, has worked up a portrait of six generations of one family, covering more than a century from 1898 to the present, as manifested around the big, sturdy, all-purpose table which is the fulcrum of their family life. David Best of Lichfield built it for himself and his new bride; corpses were laid out on it, seductions and adulterous rogerings took place against it, it even once served as the hiding-place for a leopard during its stint (with one of the Bests) in a convent in Tanganyika. Just as the NT’s Shed may look like a table, so Ronder’s table is a more meaningful home to the Bests than any building in which it is housed. Katrina Lindsay’s design includes a raised playing area carved with initials and sigils much as we infer the table itself is.
    
The cast of nine all play multiple roles. Paul Hilton has the most substantial chance to stand out from the ensemble, since one of his characters, Gideon, is followed through several stages of his life from childhood in Africa to grandfatherhood in London. He also handles most of the musical snatches sung during scene transitions (but for a beautiful communal rendition of the Shaker hymn “Lay Me Low”). This Shed will clearly house more purposeful activity than mere pottering about.

Written for the Financial Times.