A statement signed by 68 actors, writers and directors was handed in to the Hungarian Embassy last week by actor Sam West, Writers' Guild of Great Britain president David Edgar and Equity president Malcolm Sinclair in protest at the enforced appointment of a far-right party supporter as director of the New Theatre.
The text of the statement, which was published in full as a letter in The Guardian, indicates the signatories' alarm at the appointment of actor György Dörner, a supporter of the far-right Jobbik party, as director of the New Theatre by the mayor of Budapest, who sacked the previous director.
According to the statement, Dörner has said he intends to present only Hungarian plays instead of "foreign garbage" to try to reverse the country's "degenerate, sick, liberal hegemony". The plays are likely to include those written by his friend István Csurka, president of the Hungarian Justice and Life Party.
The signatories to the statement are: artistic directors Michael Attenborough, Michael Boyd, Dominic Cooke, Daniel Evans, Nicholas Hytner, David Lan, Nicolas Kent, Josie Rourke and Erica Whyman; actors Rosalind Ayres, Eve Best, Simon Callow, Bertie Carvel, James Frain, Romola Garai, Gawn Grainger, Henry Goodman, Martin Jarvis, Toby Jones, Beverley Klein, Roger Lloyd Pack, James Purefoy, Antony Sher, Imelda Staunton, Dan Stevens, Janet Suzman, Harriet Walter, Zoë Wanamaker, Samuel West and Timothy West; directors Neil Bartlett, Gregory Doran, Richard Eyre, Kevin Macdonald, Trevor Nunn, Indhu Rubasingham and Tim Supple; playwrights Richard Bean, Howard Brenton, Moira Buffini, Caryl Churchill, April de Angelis, David Edgar, Michael Frayn, Lee Hall, David Hare, Terry Johnson, Mark Ravenhill, Laura Wade, Timberlake Wertenbaker and Arnold Wesker; plus Bernie Corbett (General secretary of the Writers' Guild), Christine Payne (General secretary of Equity), Malcolm Sinclair (President of Equity), Joan Bakewell, Don Black, Geraldine D'Amico (Jewish Book Week), Jessica Duchen, Denise Epstein (daughter of Irène Némirovsky), Ruth Fainlight, Henrietta Foster, Michael Grade, Amanda Hopkinson (PEN), Dennis Marks, Kate Pakenham, Sharif István Horthy, András Schiff and George Szirtes.