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Dateline: 6th March, 2006
Theatre Museum at Risk After failing for the second time to secure a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden is under threat. Last week its staff (and, indeed, all the staff of the Victoria and Albert Museum of which the Theatre Museum is a part) were informed of the threat by an intranet message just days before Sunday Times columnist Richard Brooks revealed to the public the story that had been leaked to him. One of the options being considered - and, from what one gathers, probably the most likely one - is the removal of all the contents to the V&A's main site in South Kensington where it would have to vie for exhibition space with the rest of the V&A collection According to figures obtained by Ian Herbert, of the Society for Theatre Research and former editor of Theatre Record, the annual cost of running the Covent Garden site is £1m, which is approximately the figure the V&A could expect to get if it sold the site. In the last financial year, he said, the Museum attracted 225,000 visitors, although this year numbers are down (as are the V&A's, which have dropped 10%). Indeed, they halved in August following the events of 7/7. All the press office at the V&A will say is that they are “conducting a review of the best way forward”. The Theatre Museum was formed in 1974 by joining together the Enthoven and Beard Collections, which had been given to the V&A, to the hodings of the British Theatre Museum Association and Richard Buckle's Friends of the Museum of Performing Arts. It moved into the Covent Garden premises in 1987. Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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