Short-sighted decision

Published Tuesday 11 December 2007 at 11:15

I wish to express my outrage over what has happened to Derby Playhouse. While I understand that it wasn’t actually Derby City Council that took the decision to close the theatre, it does rather seem as if the board of the Playhouse had no other option after the council’s decision not to advance the payment of the theatre’s grant by a few weeks. This time of year is always difficult, financially, for a producing theatre. The autumn season’s outlay has been spent, but the theatre is yet to receive the income from its usually lucrative Christmas production. I understand that negotiations had been taking place in order to re-phase the payment portions of the grant, but that no agreement had been reached.

Does the council have the faintest idea of just how important a producing theatre is for a city? Especially a city which has stated its aims to be one of the country’s top ten cities! As a Derby man, born, bred and usually proud of it, as well as having started my professional theatre career at the Playhouse, it sickens me that the council seems to be so short-sighted. Derby will never be a city equal to Nottingham, or even Leicester, never mind the likes of Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield. Not at least as far as its role in the cultural development is concerned. The Assembly Rooms will never be able to take the place of the Playhouse. It’s a soulless barn of a place for theatre. The Guildhall is charming, but very, very limited technically. I mean, come on, it doesn’t even have a fly tower.

Producing theatres are there to produce theatre for the local people of a standard that they wouldn’t be able to see elsewhere in the city. I do know that producing theatre is not cheap, but surely it is the responsibility of a local council to subsidise such endeavours? Especially a council with its stated aims?

The rumours I have heard, and I live in Hampshire these days so they must be fairly strong rumours, is that the council, along with the Westfield shopping centre, which houses the theatre, want to locate a John Lewis department store on the site of the Playhouse. I cannot state enough just how much of a travesty that would be.

A city needs a theatre and preferably a producing theatre. Derby Playhouse wouldn’t be a viable alternative to the Nottingham Theatre Royal complex for commercial touring productions. It just isn’t big enough.

The city centre is a mess and has been for a couple of years at least. Despite council objections to the case, the chaos caused by the Westfield expansion and redevelopment has had an impact on audience members deciding if they want to drive into the city centre, or not in an evening. I know this, because I still have family in the city and I am still a fairly frequent visitor. And now, just as the redevelopment is complete, comes the decision not to help the Playhouse further. The council members that sit on the theatre’s board should be ashamed of themselves. As should the whole of the council. If Arts Council England was willing to advance its portion of the grant, why isn’t the city?

I haven’t even started to go on about all the talented and dedicated members of staff that have lost their jobs three weeks before Christmas. These people were either from the city, or had chosen to settle there. Now, though, they are going to be forced to look for work elsewhere, further depleting the city of talented and creative members of society.

Maybe the city council wants its population to visit Nottingham and its marvellous Playhouse, or perhaps Leicester and the soon to be reopened Leicester Haymarket, a development being trumpeted as the most exciting theatre project in Britain, for its cultural fix? This hurts me to write, but these cities have vision. Maybe Derby does to. Perhaps the city council is just pretending not to care about the cultural life of the city. Somehow, though, I doubt it.

Stuart Harrison

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