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Interviews
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Ray Spencer - Local Hero Peter Lathan talks to Ray Spencer, director of the Customs House, South Shields, about how he turned a theatre dismissed by ACE as being "of no regional significance" in 1998, into one which it now uses as an example of artistic and financial success. In its Strategic Stock-Take in 1998, the then Arts Council of England described South Shields' Customs House, a theatre, cinema and art gallery, as being "of no regional significance". Just weeks ago, in the publication A Case for the Arts, Arts Council England has this to say:
(Italics mine) Ray Spencer took over as director of the ailing venue in January 2000 when it was on the verge of bamkruptcy, having had almost as many directors in its short history as years it had been in existence and was increasingly being seen as a big void into which South Tyneside Council was throwing the council tax payers' money. Although the cinema was popular (it accounted for 75% of income), bring the only one in town, attendance at "live" activity in the venue was very small at just 24,000. A lecturer in Performing Arts at South Tyneside College, Spencer was best known in the borough as "Tommy the Trumpeter", children's entertainer, and a performer in and director of pantomimes, including the Customs House's own annual panto. When he was appointed he was told that the appointment was conditional upon his writing a recovery plan and submitting it to the Arts Council. he did so, and the bid was successful. By 2003 "live" audiences were up to 93,000; 27,000 attended the cinema; 32,500 took part in the venue's arts development activities and the gallery had 10,000 visitors. In addition, over 15,000 children were involved in arts activities organised by Custombuilt, the Customs House Arts in Education agency, out of a total of 25,000 on school rolls in the borough. In 1998 the total number of people involved did not reach 55,000. In 2003, too, Custombuilt applied for and won the contract to be the Arts in Education agency for North Tyneside, and this year was awarded the contract to manage Creative Partnerships for North and South Tyneside. Turnover this year will be in the region of £1.9m: next year, with the full impact of Creative Partnerships, it should be around £2.5m. So how did he do it? "Well, to begin with, the building needed to be more user-friendly," he says. "We had a tiny bar upstairs and it was obvious that people were popping out to one of the local pubs at the interval. So we moved the box office, which was the largest public space apart from the auditoria, and put the bar where it had been. We refurbished the main house, replaced the seating in the Studio, and redecorated the whole place. That was the start." But of course if the public weren't coming through the doors, these would have been just cosmetic changes. "I think that previously," he says, "the management had gone along the lines of 'This is good for you, so come'!" He went out and about, visiting all sorts of different groups, schools, WIs, youth clubs, ethinic minority groups, and simply asked what they wanted to see. "They wanted things they could feel ownership of - North East plays by North East people about North East topics with North East actors, directors and production teams." He began in a small way with a February drama festival featuring new plays by local writers, and then went on to introduce local musicals: Tom and Catherine (about local novelist Catherine Cookson), Fine, Fine, Fine by agony aunt Denise Robertson, and Dan Dare - the Musical, written by Tom Kelly, with music by John Miles, all brought the crowds in. But it is comedy which has been the main beneficiary of this development. In 2003 the Customs House presented Dirty Dusting, a play about three elderly office cleaners who set up a sex chat line in their employer's premises, by local writers Ed Waugh and Trevor Wood. That proved so popular that it transferred for three days to Newcastle's Theatre Royal, where it sold out. Now it's back at the Theatre Royal later this month and it has been taken over by Qdos Entertainment which will take it on tour nationally. "The thing is," he adds, "the success of our in-house productions attracted an audience for touring product. That's something that didn't happen before. And we are able to include some quite demanding work in our programme and the audiences will come, because they've come to trust us. "This all culminated in the Take-Off 2003 Children's Theatre Festival, where we had eighteen companies, five of them from Europe, and we played to a total audience of 4,500." He tries to produce a programme with as wide an appeal as possible. The annual Guitar Festival brings audiences from all over the country and we've not got a really good cross-over audience for Asian theatre, particularly Bollywood-style musicals like The Pit and the Poppadom. When I first talked to people, it was clear that there was a small but enthusiastic audience for classical music, so we started lunchtime recitals at their suggestion. At first we were getting a dozen or so, but we recently had 200 for an evening concert. That's great progress in three years."
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