TAITMAIL Two community theatres
This is a story of two theatres, two local theatres, moulded to their communities. One is in Kent, the other in north London. One is a love story, the other a tragedy. They are each a signpost for Lisa Nandy as she looks for ways that the local arts she says she, as culture secretary, is determined to promote can not only survive but develop, encouraging partnerships and community involvement.
The romance is in Royal Tunbridge Wells where, on December 4, a new theatre opens with the town’s Christmas children’s show, Fearless Fox and the Christmas Star.
It’s The Little Vic Theatre, created not in a conventional theatre building but in the middle of the Royal Victoria Place shopping centre in a space that used to be a clothing shop. Opened by Diana, Princess of Wales, 32 years ago the RVP has, like high streets up and down the country, been experiencing hard times, with long standing retail outlets deserting them and shop windows covered in fly posters.
The Little Vic is part of the kind of partnership Nandy and her team tell me they are keen to encourage, an alliance of the RVP itself, the Assembly Hall Theatre and the borough council. It’s a pop-up, a 90-seat mini-playhouse built into the borough’s policy of changing the nature of the RVP as a “community and social events venue”, born when the council, the freeholder, bought the leasehold of the precinct from British Land a year ago. So the local authority both owns and operates it.
This year the RVP has hosted events, performances and even the Subbuteo World Cup, with the Little Vic the latest initiative in a policy already successful, as declared by the borough’s business director, Lee Colyer, a success “…made possible by bringing together the knowledge from across the town and particularly the council’s expertise from the Assembly Hall Theatre, The Amelia Scott, economic development and communications (council departments) who now link in directly with the management of RVP. This will complement and enhance the already established events and activities across the town” he wrote in the local TW Business Magazine.
The Amelia Scott - named after a famous suffragette and local notable of a century ago - is the town’s new museum and library which opened in 2022 as a “cultural hub” doubling as a municipal advice centre and a venue for the annual literary festival run from the Assembly Hall Theatre.
It’s all part of a strategy, Colyer says, to help the shopping centre respond to the change in retail with people wanting a variety reasons for visiting town centres other than just to shop. Meanwhile, the initiative is sparking new retail interest with investment from the likes of Primark, Sostrene Grene and Nando’s.
The theatre is being built into the space, with funding from the Arts Council (£20,000), local sponsors, and box office from the main theatre – no cash from the council, but the venue plus infinite advice and encouragement when required. The Little Vic will be up at least for the run of the Christmas show, that is to December 29, and will move out if a paying retailer needs it, in which case the theatre can be folded away until it’s needed to pop up again. Alternatively, it can stay with new non-main stage productions and as a central RVP attraction venue for, say, the literary festival in May.
“It shows the importance the council believes theatre and culture has in the community, both in funding the Assembly Hall Theatre and supporting this new venture,” says Carole Winter, the Assembly Hall’s producer who is behind the Little Vic, “and it’s what should be happening in high streets all over the country.”
It’s not happening in Hayes in north-west London, the scene of a tragedy being played out right now. The Beck Theatre, built in 1977 with a bequest from an otherwise forgotten local politician as a community theatre hosting concerts, drama, comedy, dance, musicals, opera, films and, inevitably, panto, is almost certain to close in January after the principals involved – the London Borough of Hillingdon and the West End based producing giant Trafalgar Entertainment – struck stalemate last week. It was a long-standing partnership that just stopped working, each blaming the other.
Hillingdon is the freeholder which has until recently provided cover for repair and maintenance, and subsidy; Trafalgar have been the operators since 2021, the last of a succession which included Apollo Leisure and Qdos.
Having a theatre is expensive and even though Hillingdon built and own the Beck they have no statutory requirement to maintain it, as they would a public library, and budgets are tight. A local pressure group, Back the Beck, claiming to represent the community, accuses the council of already having plans for a residential development on the site, though they can’t prove it. What is clear is that the borough felt it couldn’t afford both a subsidy and a maintenance budget: Trafalgar, whose contract expired in June, claim Hillingdon turned down their offer of an extension without subsidy to keep the theatre open.
The campaign is being supported by the local MP, John McDonnell, who describes Hillingdon’s suspected manoeuvres as “an act of cultural vandalism in a culturally diverse, working-class community”.
The council claims that as recently as last week there was a deal on the table, involving rent-free use of the theatre for three-and-a-half years and the possibility of long-term future investment for maybe a new theatre. “Trafalgar changed their demands and the deal has subsequently fallen through” said a statement from the council.
And so it goes. And despite the theatre’s website booking to May next year, the Beck looks certain to bring the curtain down for the last time on Monday, January 13.