Refurbishment would close Festival Fringe’s Assembly Rooms

Published Tuesday 12 December 2006 at 16:10 by Alistair Smith

Edinburgh Assembly Rooms is under threat as a key Festival Fringe venue after theatre managers warned that a £10 million refurbishment planned for the site would force them to shut down.

City of Edinburgh Council has unveiled plans to upgrade the building in an attempt to turn it into a “destination venue”, with the ground floor, which is currently used during the festival, instead given over to shops and a restaurant, while the Music Hall would also undergo a refurbishment, increasing its capacity to 750.

As part of the plans, the site would be forced to close for 18 months and Assembly Theatre director William Burdett Coutts has claimed that the shut down and proposed changes to the building would be disastrous for his operation, which holds a lease on the venue until 2009 - when the works are scheduled to start.

Officials at the council have moved to reassure him that they will consider the possibility of the building remaining open during the festival period and are entering talks with him to reach a solution. However, they have stressed it was “too soon to say” what will happen for definite.

The city’s culture leader councillor Donald Anderson added: “The Assembly Rooms is historically a very important building as the only one of its kind surviving in the British Isles. They have a long and proud history of service to the city and everyone agrees on the need to refurbish them.

“People have been calling for the council to invest in upgrading the facilities and building for some time.”

Burdett Coutts, however, has also complained that he has been given little chance to offer input on the scheme, adding that he would lose three of his main performance spaces and the club bar.

“I was completely shocked to hear what the council was planning to do with the Assembly Rooms,” Burdett Coutts complained to the Edinburgh Evening News. “I was called to a meeting and was told what was happening and that I could basically like it or lump it. There was no way it could be called a consultation. It was a fait accompli. Quite simply, if the council was to go ahead with this it would shut us down… The whole guts of our operation would be ripped out.”

Other leading fringe figures have also expressed concern at the news, with Festival Fringe director Paul Gudgin warning that an extended closure could be fatal for the venue.

Meanwhile, producer Richard Jordan, who has been taking shows to the venue since 1999, commented: “To lose three of the most important performance spaces in Edinburgh would be a catastrophe. The Assembly Rooms is a focal point of the fringe and has one of the most important standings both for developing and established companies.”