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Dateline: 17th June, 2004
Billy Elliot Venue Closes The Newcastle Opera House, which was to have been the venue for the premiere of Billy Elliot the Musical, has closed. A statement for the owners, Dovetail Trading Limited, announced:
The Grade-One listed theatre, which opened in 1867 and still retains all of the Victorian stage machinery, has had a chequered career. Sarah Bernhardt appeared there three times (the first time in 1895) but in 1919 it became a cinema and remained a cinema (The Stoll) until 1974, although in its later days it was best known for showing the sexiest of sex films, with stars such as the appropriately named Chesty Morgan. It re-opened in 1977 as a venue for amateur musicals, although local variety stars such as Leah Bell also used the venue. In 1983 Placido Domingo appeared there in Tosca but two years later it closed again, when a fire broke out on Christmas Day 1985. After a £1.5m restoration it re-opened yet again but sank further and further into debt and even a production of La Cage aux Folles starring Danny La Rue losty money. A local businessman put up £650,000 to save the theatre in 1995, but plans to make it the new home of the English Shakespeare Company and D'Oyly Carte fell through and again it changed hands. New owners Infonow turned it into a music venue, attracting stars such as Bill Wyman and Midge Ure. In 2003 it suffered a double blow: in March the High Court ordered Infonow to pay £5,000 costs and stopped all performances until the theatre obtained a licence from the Performing Rights Society, and in April English Heritage put the building on the at-risk register. Then in May Infonow went into administration. The theatre was bought by property developers the Adderstone Group, which made a substantial injection of capital into a new company, Dovetail Trading Ltd., which was run by Infonow director Anthony Turner and general manager Jim Semmence. It is this company which has failed. Rent on the Bistro has not been paid for a year and the insurance on the property lapsed, so Adderstone called in liquidators Tenon. In a statement Ian Baggett, managing director of Adderstone, said that he hopes they will be able to find a new management company to take over the running of the theatre. Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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