THE Royal Shakespeare Company is as committed as ever to coming to Newcastle for its annual season, says Erica Whyman, who moved from chief executive with Newcastle-based Northern Stage to become the RSC’s deputy artistic director a year ago.

And she hints there may be a collaboration between the RSC and North-East stage companies to produce new work.

What has changed is the shape of the season. I remember the first one when I arrived in the North-East saw the RSC taking over three theatres for six weeks and presenting almost the entire Stratford-upon-Avon season in the region. This week’s visit follows the pattern of the 2013 season with just three Shakespeare productions transferring from the RSC’s Stratford base.

Funding, both for the RSC and Newcastle, has changed but the main reason the season is “a different shape” is because the audience has changed in the North-East, she says. “It used to be the case that people saved up all year to come to the RSC season. They’d see three or four plays and not see anything else all year. Now the audience is more spread out over the year and they’re taking a more eclectic approach.

And it’s much healthier for the theatre to spread it out over the year.

“But we are firmly committed to coming and we love having that connection with the audience in Newcastle.”

Whyman is known for her work with new writing – one of her tasks with the RSC – so “maybe making some work together” seems obvious.

It could happen as she talks of deepening the special partnership between the RSC and Newcastle and a “way of making that special relationship real”.

RSC artistic director Gregory Doran will direct two of the shows coming to the Theatre Royal – the history plays Henry IV, Part I and Henry V, Part II with a cast including Antony Sher as Falstaff, Jasper Britton as Henry IV, Alex Hassell as Prince Hal and Paola Dionisoti as Mistress Quickly.

Sher last performed with the RSC as Prospero in The Tempest in 2009, while Hassell returns to the company having performed with the RSC in 2011 in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The City Madam and Doran’s production of Cardenio.

Britton’s RSC appearances include Petruchio in Doran’s production of The Taming Of The Shrew and The Tamer Tamed.

Several of the cast and all of the creative team for these productions were also part of Doran’s recent production of Richard II with David Tenant.

Shakespeare’s romantic comedy The Two Gentlemen Of Verona completes the season. Before coming to Newcastle, the play will be performed on the Royal Shakespeare Theatre stage for the first time in 45 years.

Whyman points out that in his first year as artistic director Doran is bringing two of his productions to Newcastle. “He’s set out a very clear programme of let’s do all of Shakespeare’s plays over the next six or seven years, and we introduce slowly less familiar plays to our audiences,” she says.

“He’s working his way through the history plays and started with Richard II. This is the next chapter in that cycle and was early in that cycle. They interact very well together and are state of the nation plays.

The cast are enjoying how timely they are.

They’re about people struggling with equality, war and other things.

They’re as much about the nation now as in Shakespeare’s time.

“They’re also very funny – the whole Falstaff story. Two Gentlemen is a hilarious play, but has just fallen off the wagon. People say let’s take a play we know and the others, like Two Gentlemen, just get forgotten about. It’s quite an intimate story, but no reason not to put it on the main stage.”

Whyman hasn’t directed anything in the season, or at Stratford for that matter. The reason is simple – she had a daughter, Ruby, now nine months, and needed to take some time off from the RSC. But she’s directing a Christmas show at Stratford, The Christmas Truce about the truce in hostilities in the Second World War.

“It’s an idea which took hold in Newcastle because I directed Oh!

What A Lovely War and got obsessed with the First World War and the politics.

It’s my first major directorial work since I came to the RSC,” she says.

But she’s always enjoyed her role as a programmer, which she’s been able to pursue at Stratford. It’s good to oversee other people’s work, she adds. She’s continuing looking at collaborations across art forms as she did at Northern Stage. Whyman is also planning the reopening of the RSC’s Other Place next year which will provide a home for new work.

“We’ve had a very good winter at Stratford. Because its such a wide range of work it’s a difficult challenge in terms of audiences.

“It’s about reaching the audience and we are presenting more of the Stratford shows in the cinema, so people can see it even if they can’t get to the theatre. What I found about audiences in the North-East is that we had some success – Northern Stage, Live Theatre and the Theatre Royal – in attracting people who were not confident about going to the theatre. They were newcomers or couldn’t come before because of funds.”

She did comment while at Newcastle about the amount of form-filling people who run theatre companies need to do. So, is there less paperwork at the RSC? “There’s almost exactly as much form-filling – but I think that’s partly because I volunteer to do it.

  • RSC SEASON AT NEWCASTLE THEATRE ROYAL
    Henry VI, Part I runs September 25 to October 4 and Henry VI, Part II from September 26 to October 4. The Two Gentlemen Of Verona runs October 7 to 11. Friends of the Theatre Royal can book now. Public booking opens on Saturday. Box office 08448- 112121 and online theatreroyal.co.uk