Editing Royal Shakespeare Company (section)

====Troubled times====
Nunn (who had been appointed to follow Hall's tenure at the National Theatre in 1968) ceded his RSC executive directorship in 1986 to his co-artistic director [[Terry Hands]], who bore the brunt of media hostility during a difficult few years for the company.  Hands took the decision to suspend the RSC's residency at The Barbican Theatre and The Pit during the winter season of 1990–91, thus vacating the capital for the first time in 30 years. This was seen as essential if the RSC was to secure an increase in subsidy from the Arts Council.{{citation needed|date=March 2012}}

Shortly after that decision [[Adrian Noble]] returned to the RSC to take over from Hands as artistic director and chief executive.  The company had serious funding problems.  Noble's decision to sever all RSC connections with the Barbican Centre, funded by the Corporation of the City of London, was widely condemned,<ref>{{cite book|last=Chambers|first=Colin|title=Inside the Royal Shakespeare Company: Creativity and the Institution|year=2004|publisher=Routledge|location=London|isbn=978-0-415-21202-1|page=108|chapter=Crisis and Modernisation}}</ref> and towards the end of his tenure things began to go terribly wrong, partly through his pursuit and support of the so-called [[Project Fleet]], a radical scheme aimed at rescuing the RSC from its financial crisis by replacing the Royal Shakespeare Theatre with a crowd-pleasing 'Shakespeare Village' and streamlining the company's performance structure and ensemble principle.<ref>{{cite news|title=Brave new world; Shakespeare|date=1 December 2001|newspaper=[[The Economist]]|page=53|location=London|quote=Adrian Noble, the Royal Shakespeare Company's artistic director, wants to demolish the main, unloved theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon and replace it with a £100m theatre village}}</ref>