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Dateline: 27th November, 2004
Edinburgh's Theatres Need Almost £1m According to The Scotsman, the Edinburgh Theatre Strategy, a report commissioned by the city council from Graham Devlin Associates, suggests that Edinburgh's theatres will need an extra £900,000 over the next four years. This money is needed, the report says, by all aspects of theatre in the city: theatres, companies and "non-professional" groups. In addition, the report suggests there should be a joint box office for the city’s theatres, concert halls, festivals and other "cultural providers" and funding for this is already provided. Many of the theatres are in trouble. An extra £500,000 was given to the Festival Theatres Trust, which runs the King's and Edinburgh Festival Theatres, earlier this year. Part of the package was a stipulation that the King's go dark from February to August 2005. In fact the King's position is precarious as it suffers from the close proximity of other theatres - the Traverse and Royal Lyceum are just a short walk down Lothian Road - and, being a receiving house, it cannot compete with the much larger Playhouse across town, which is able to take the biggest touring shows. Currently at the Playhouse is Mamma Mia! (which opened on 27th and runs until 29th January), and in 2005 it will host, among others, Riverdance, Chicago, Starlight Express, Thoroughly Modern Millie and Disney's Beauty and the Beast. The King's panto, Aladdin, also opened on 27th. The King's, which celebrates its centenary in 2006, needs considerable refurbishment but a bid for Lottery cash failed earlier this year. Now the Strategy reports suggests that the council should consider passing on the running of the King's to a commercial company such as ATG (Ambassador Theatre Group), which took over the running of the King's, Glasgow, in 2002. The report does note, however, that a subsidy from the council would still be necessary. An alternative proposal is for the council to sell off the Leith Theatre and plough the money into the refurbishment of the King's. The Leith Theatre has been closed since 1983 and is in a very dilapidated condition. The Traverse, too, has problems: it has not included any in-house productions in its winter programme in an effort to reduce debt. Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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