Culture Secretary Chris Smith has proposed that English National Opera should move into Covent Garden with the Royal Opera and the Royal Ballet to cut costs. The aim would be for the companies not playing in the House at any one time to be on tour. The Coliseum would be sold, but he has given no assurance that it would remain a theatre.
YOMT and Radio 3 are to held a debate on the future of opera on 26th November in Cambridge. On the panel will be Keith Cooper (ROH director of sales and broadcasting), director Phyllida Lloyd, and Ruth Mackenzie, general director of Scottish Opera.
Arts minister Mark Fisher, speaking at the Association for Business Sponsorship of the Arts awards ceremony at Glyndebourne recently, has said that his aim to to make ACE a "much slimmer, strategic organisation", an announcement which has sent shivers down the spine of the inhabitants of Great Peter Street. Coupled with the news that staff at ACE were not told of the ENO proposals until journalists had been briefed, the organisation's future does not look bright!
Record Advance for Saturday Night Fever
Within two days of opening, advanced booking for Saturday Night Fever (opening at the London Palladium in the spring) reached £1.9m, the biggest ever for a West End show.
Prudential award for Out of Joint
Max Stafford-Clark's company, Out of Joint, has been awarded the £50,000 Prudential prize for drama, and he used his acceptance speech to attack to government's policy on arts funding. The National Lottery, he claimed, is not the best way to fund the arts, and he went on to say that he believed that Culture Secretary Chris Smith (who, with Peter Mandelson, was in the audience) does not have the will or the power to secure more money for the arts.
Newcastle calls in consultants
Newcastle City Council is to call in external consultants to advise on the future of theatre in the city, following the Theatre Royal's loss of £585,000 last year and projected loss of £693,000 for this year. Ideas to be considered include the possibility of joint management of the Royal and the New Tyne, revealed on this page last week. (Incidentally, we were the first national publication, print or internet, to carry the story.)
Liverpool theatres' trust on the cards?
Rumour has it that among the proposals being developed by Liverpool Playhouse administrators Ernst and Young is a suggestion for a Liverpool Theatres' Trust, linking the ailing Playhouse with the Everyman.
Doncaster's planning committe has stepped in to refuse owners Prudential permission to demolish the Grand Theatre, closed three years ago, to build a new shopping centre. A 45,000 signature petition had been organised in protest.