The Stage

Redgrave rallies influential names for Theatre Museum event

Published Tuesday 9 May 2006 at 11:25 by Alistair Smith

Vanessa Redgrave is to host a special reception in support of the campaign to keep the Theatre Museum in the heart of Theatreland.

The event, which she described as “a very special, warm and friendly” evening, will be held at the museum’s Covent Garden base on May 16 and will feature influential names from all walks of theatrical life - from theatre owners to performers - and also some from outside the performing arts world.

The trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum, which controls funding to the Theatre Museum, have also been invited to attend. Other members of the Redgrave family will also take part in the invitation-only evening, which is being jointly hosted with producer Thelma Holt.

“What is wonderful about this Theatre Museum is that the devotion and the thinking of the human beings who work here produces small-scale exhibitions which are able to convey the humanity of this history of ours,” explained Redgrave. “So a reception is a gathering of human beings and you want it to be human beings who can be very happy to be in this special place and to be with each other.

“You don’t want it to be a confrontation. You seek to say, ‘we will give you all our support’, whether it is V&A trustees or select committees of any kind, ‘and you give us all your support’. Let us extend, let us build, let us create. With enough vision, funding will follow - it always has.”

Redgrave highlighted the example of Sam Wannamaker’s project to recreate Shakespeare’s Globe on the South Bank as the kind of initiative that had successfully brought theatrical history to life and added that representatives from the Globe would be at the reception.

Under suggestions made recently by the V&A, much of the organisation’s collection could be transformed into a virtual museum, with some of the material being moved to the V&A in South Kensington and a greater importance given to touring exhibitions. However, Redgrave insisted that the current Covent Garden site should be “supported and developed”.

“The point is that nobody would ever want to rule out any wonderful connections with modern technology because most of our productions in the theatre these days are done with the help of sound and lighting designers who are right up front with the use of modern technology.

“However, what is essential and unique about theatre is that it is live,” she added. “What theatre can do and what only theatre can do, and what this Theatre Museum can do, and does do, is remind everybody, both those who participate and those who are there, that they are human.”

Redgrave was one of the very first to put her name to The Stage’s campaign to save the Theatre Museum and has been vocal in her support for the organisation and its desire to remain at its Covent Garden site.

Meanwhile, the final date for submissions to the V&A’s consultation document on the future of the Theatre Museum will pass this week on May 12.