The Stage

Opposition to Blackpool museum rescue offer

Published Wednesday 6 December 2006 at 11:10

Blackpool’s surprise offer to rehouse the Theatre Museum is meeting with early opposition from campaigners who say the UK’s light entertainment capital must not be allowed to remove the collection from its West End base.

Announcement of the bid by the town to rescue the troubled museum, which will lose its Covent Garden home in the New Year, was met with disbelief in some quarters.

The Guardians of The Theatre Museum, who are leading the fight to keep the museum in London, hinted that talks between the Victoria & Albert Museum and Blackpool Council would undermine their attempts to find any alternative.

A spokesperson told The Stage: “It should be noted that the effect of the V&A’s last announcement of a ‘rescue plan’ - the failed collaboration with the Royal Opera House - was to put on hold any other attempt to develop new possibilities for the growth of Russell Street, leaving very little time, after six months’ of deliberations, for constructive alternatives to be put forward.”

The Guardians demanded Blackpool be permitted only to provide a ‘satellite’ to the museum’s London home and encouraged the V&A to consider approaches from rival cities, notably neighbouring Liverpool.

However the town’s culture and leisure spokesperson David Owen maintained: “As home to the National Theatre of Variety, we feel we are ideally placed to host a new National Theatre Museum.”

The local authority and the V&A are already preparing a feasibility study for the establishment of a new National Theatre Museum in the seaside resort, with displays combining the theatrical collections and contributions from Blackpool’s light entertainment heritage.

V&A director Mark Jones explained: “The V&A is committed to showing the theatrical collections to as wide an audience as possible. Blackpool has a strong theatrical and entertainment tradition and the city attracts millions of visitors a year.”

Support for a Blackpool base came from Equity general secretary Christine Payne but she added Covent Garden had to be preserved.

“It would be extraordinary for a world centre of theatre such as London to cease to have a museum dedicated to theatre. However part of Equity’s vision for the National Theatre of Variety, now at the Blackpool Grand, was for there to be a collection of variety memorabilia associated with it,” stated Payne.

A question mark remains over the future of the Theatre Museum’s research collection housed at the V&A’s Blythe House reading rooms, after a spokesman stated the Victoria & Albert would need to examine “how the archive is managed… to allow maximum accessibility and access to those who use it most”.

Peter Hall has added his voice to those opposing the closure of the Theatre Museum’s Covent Garden site. He said: “When I think of the money spent on the Dome and various other government initiatives that have cost a fortune and come to nothing, I begin to feel we are fast becoming a land of missed opportunities as far as our cultural heritage is concerned.

“Our theatre is the envy of the world and the Government and the Department of Culture should be fighting to keep the Museum open, not seeking ways to reduce its importance and stature.”