While the National has a long track record of offering discounted seats, the Wolf Hall star said it had a duty to cut prices further in return for receiving state funding.

The multi award-winning actor said subsidies should be used to ensure plays are open to as wide an audience as possible.

“You can’t have the RSC and the National receiving millions of pounds of money without a lower price, in my feeling,” he told The Stage. “A lower price should be part of it.”

He continued: “It absolutely has to be accessible this stuff. And that should be the condition of the subsidy”. He spoke approvingly of the Globe Theatre, where groundling tickets cost £5 and there is “a diverse audience of young people and all kinds of mixed culture people in the audience”.