National Theatre's incoming director promises cheap seats and new productions to explore edge of drama

Cheaper seats and anti-government plots will play leading roles in the first season of plays from the new director of the National Theatre.

Nicholas Hytner, who will succeed Sir Trevor Nunn in April, announced a season yesterday that will not only see a new play by Sir David Hare criticising New Labour on public services but also a production of Shakespeare's Henry V, which Mr Hytner is going to use to make parallels with British troops going to Iraq.

The new NT director went out of his way yesterday to say that Henry V featured "a young charismatic leader sending British troops to war in a cause with dubious legitimacy in international law".

Perhaps more significantly, Mr Hytner will change the pricing structure so that two-thirds of tickets for all productions in the main auditorium, the Olivier theatre, are £10, with the remaining third at £20.

Mr Hytner's initiative comes in the wake of The Independent's ongoing campaign for cheaper tickets, the Lister Experiment, and it is known that our campaign figured in Mr Hytner's deliberations.

He also contradicted those producers who say that if you reduce ticket prices you must lose money. He said yesterday: "If we played to capacity with our £10 season we would make just as much at the box office as we would if we budgeted for full price [with the normal 65 per cent projections]." Mr Hytner will also have a different style of leadership from his predecessor, who had no associate directors and actors making policy with him. He will have a whole team of them that he will consult regularly. They include star actors and actresses such as Helen Mirren, Simon Russell-Beale and Zoe Wanamaker.

The David Hare play would be an investigative project, Mr Hytner said. He would not give any other details, but it is known it will be critical of the state of public services under New Labour. As revealed previously in The Independent, Henry V will see the acclaimed black actor Adrian Lester playing the king. Mr Hytner said yesterday: "He is the best actor for Henry V. I myself am also fascinated that he is black. Twenty five years ago it would have been unlikely that the leading heroic, classical actor of the day was black."

Puppetry will feature as part of the design for an adaptation at the National of Philip Pullman's prize-winning book His Dark Materials. Also in Mr Hytner's first season will be a play about black-on-black crime. The new play about the Yardie gun and drug culture in Hackney, east London, is called Elmina's Kitchen, and has been written by Kwame Kwei-Armah, best known as the paramedic Finlay Newton in Casualty on BBC1.

Expounding on his philosophy for the NT, Mr Hytner said: "We will explore the new edge of vital drama, explore new forms of theatre, new forms of musical theatre."

*#149; Independent readers will be able to buy best seats for the Madness musical Our House at the Cambridge Theatre, London (020-7494 5080) on any Monday in January or February for £11.50, the price of a central London cinema ticket, under the Lister Experiment.

In addition, the Royal Shakespeare Company has decided to put another two productions into the experiment. They are both in the acclaimed season of rare Jacobean plays being put on by the leading West End producers Bill Kenwright and Thelma Holt.

The plays are Edward III on Monday, 27 January, and The Island Princess on Wednesday, 29 January, both at the Gielgud theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue, London (0870-890 1105). Readers should ring the relevant box offices and mention the Lister Experiment.