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Dateline: 28th June, 2009 News from the North West
Lowry calls for scrapping of Royal Opera Manchester plansTrustees at Salford's Lowry arts centre have publicly condemned the plans for London's Royal Opera House to create a northern base for its productions in Manchester. As we reported in March, the official ACE report into the proposals concluded that the plans as they stood at that time were not viable but were worth exploring further and it made specific mention of possible adverse effects on The Lowry which features in its varied programme regular visits from leading opera and ballet companies from around the world. The Lowry's chairman Rod Aldridge proposed a sharing model that gave The Palace the opera and music productions and The Lowry the ballet and other dance, but The Lowry's own independent report, commissioned from David Pratley Associates, concluded that this would destroy the venue's business model. Aldridge stands by his proposal as the only workable model, and the Lowry has written to ACE, culture secretary Ben Bradshaw, ROH and Manchester City Council to ask them to abandon their current plans.
Library Theatre may move to Theatre RoyalManchester's Library Theatre Company, which has been looking for some time for an alternative to its cramped former lecture hall in the basement of Central Library where it has resided since its birth in 1952, is now considering the former Theatre Royal across the road on Peter Street as a possible new home. Artistic director Chris Honer, speaking to The Stage earlier this week, spoke of the restrictions of the current venue in terms of number of seats and front-of-house facilities, concluding that the current venue "feels rather run-down and dowdy by 21st-century standards." Despite this, he is proposing leaving the twentieth-century Library building for the nineteenth-century Theatre Royal, built in 1845 by John Knowles with the insurance money from the former Theatre Royal on Fountain Street which burned down a year earlier. Charles Dickens performed there in Every Man in his Humour by Ben Jonson in 1847, and other famous people to have trodden its boards include Henry Irving, Lily Langtree, Dan Leno, Herbert Tree and Sarah Bernhardt. The theatre closed in 1921 and opened soon after as a cinema, but it always struggled to make a profit and eventually was turned into a bingo hall in 1972. Since 1990 it has functioned as a bar and night club, originally as Discotheque Royale and currently called M-Two. According to a report on the Grade II-listed building by The Theatres Trust, "The 1845 façade is virtually intact, and the building retains the balcony from 1875. The internal conversion for its present use seems to have obscured rather than destroyed the theatre interior, which appears to be restorable." The Library Theatre Company hopes to have a new home by 2013, and is entering into discussions with Manchester City Council next month about its proposals for Theatre Royal.
4 of top 10 'theatre buildings at risk' are in north westIn the list of 'theatre buildings at risk' just released by The Theatres Trust, four out of the ten most at risk buildings are in the north west: Blackpool Winter Gardens, Burnley Empire, Hulme Hippodrome and Playhouse and Hyde Theatre Royal. Other high risk theatres in the region are Garston Empire in Liverpool, Gateway in Chester, Tameside Hippodrome in Ashton-under-Lyne, Neptune Theatre in Liverpool, Crown Theatre in Eccles and Victoria Pavilion and Winter Gardens in Morecambe. Palace Hippodrome in Nelson is classified as 'medium risk' and 'low risk' venues include Grand Theatre and Hippodrome in Leigh, Olympia in Liverpool and Victoria in Salford. The Theatres Trust has been keeping the register since 2006, listing theatre buildings which are threatened by a change of use, deterioration of the building's fabric or demolition and classifying them as high, medium or low depending on the immediacy of the threat. The fates of some of these theatres have been covered by BTG before: Chester Gateway closed in 2007 as a new theatre is to be provided as part of a new development but a campaign started earlier this year to reopen it in the meantime; Tameside Hippodrome was closed by its owners Tameside Council a year ago despite public opposition; Hyde Theatre Royal campaign group Theatre Royal Onward has been appealing for funds and support to buy the building from its current owners and reopen it since 2000.
MIF09 and Not Part Of festivals openThe second Manchester International Festival and the companion Not Part Of, featuring theatre, music, comedy, cabaret, crafts and much more from all over the world both kick off this week. MIF is a biennial festival that commissions new work from leading artists from around the world and presents it at venues around the city centre. Not Part Of is an unofficial fringe to MIF with an extensive programme of small-scale arts events right across Manchester. We have covered the programmes for both festivals previously, but full details of events and booking information can be found at the festivals' web sites at www.mif.co.uk/ and www.notpartof.org/.
BRB principal dancer's final performances will be at The LowryLowry audiences will be the last to see Dominic Antonucci perform as principal dancer of Birmingham Royal Ballet this week in Sir Fred and Mr B and Love and Loss as he retires from performing to become BRB's ballet master. Antonucci has been principal dancer since 2003, but he joined the company as a soloist from American Ballet Theatre in 1994 and has been a regular company teacher for the last few years. BRB's artistic director David Bintley said, "I’m sure that his experience and skills along with his ability as a communicator will make Dominic a fine addition to the ballet staff." Love and Loss and Sir Fred and Mr B will be at The Lowry from 1 to 4 July.
NW productionsBirmingham Royal Ballet visits The Lowry in Salford this week with two pieces. Love and Loss on 1 and 2 July consists of Galanteries by David Bintley to music by Mozart, The Dance House, also by Bintley, to music by Shostakovich and The Dream by Sir Frederick Ashton based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Sir Fred and Mr B on 3 and 4 July features two romantic ballets, Two Pigeons by Sir Frederick Ashton and Mozartiana by George Ballanchine to music by Tchaikovsky. This year's outdoor promenade summer production by The Dukes in Lancaster's Williamson Park is Jason and the Argonauts, adapted by Kevin Dyer from the well-known Greek myth, inviting audiences to join the eponymous hero aboard the Argo in his search for the Golden Fleece. Directed by artistic director Joe Sumsion, it runs from 2 July to 8 August. The Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester is transformed into a bingo hall for Everybody Loves a Winner created by Neil Bartlett, Simon Deacon and Struan Leslie for Manchester International Festival, starring Sally Lindsay and Ian Puleston-Davies, running from 1 July to 1 August. London's Royal Opera House production of La Traviata by Verdi will be beamed live from Covent Garden to The Dukes Cinema in Lancaster, Picturehouse at FACT in Liverpool, Empire in Wigan, Odeon in Blackpool and at Printworks in Manchester and Vue at Blackburn, Cheshire Oaks, Carlisle and Southport on 30 June. At The Unity in Liverpool, Livewire Productions present The Liverpool Canal Link, a play examining the history of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, on 30 June. Les Hommes dans Robes de Chambre (The men in dressing gowns) by Trevor Hancock and Darren John Langford tells its story of two music hall comedians waiting to go on stage during the Manchester Blitz at The Lowry on 3 and 4 July. Her Story at The Lowry on 5 July tells the story of four women from Indian mythology using monologues, abhinaya (expression), and traditional nritta (abstract movements) in the Indian dance form Bharatanatyam. Reporter: David Chadderton Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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