The Stage

Exclusive: West End’s Theatre Royal Haymarket to be star of in-depth documentary

Published Wednesday 29 April 2009 at 15:50 by Matthew Hemley

London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket is to be the subject of one of UK television’s most in-depth ever series to go behind the scenes of a West End playhouse. The venue’s backstage activities will be explored in Theatreland, an eight-part observational documentary for Sky Arts that is being made by West Park Pictures, best known for shows such as Stephen Fry - HIV and Me.

Ben Weston, the show’s series producer, told The Stage Theatreland will focus on “the fabric and management of the theatre”, and the challenges faced by the people who run it. This will include behind the scenes footage of the venue’s current production of Waiting for Godot, with Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. The production company will spend three months in the venue gathering footage for the series, which Weston described as a first for UK TV.

“There has not been an observational series made behind the scenes of a playhouse,” said Weston.

“This is a first and one of the reasons is because filming in a theatre is riven with challenges, in so far as there are huge rights issues on any performance taking place there. Also, you have to remunerate just about anyone who works in a theatre if you film backstage.”

Weston revealed he had first discussed the idea of going behind the scenes of a theatre that predominantly hosts plays with Sky Arts last year, to counter the number of shows dedicated to musicals on the terrestrial channels.

He said he felt “the stage play was worthy of a bit of a push in the ecology of TV programmes around the arts” and producers had initially focused on profiling a number of West End venues before opting to concentrate on the Theatre Royal Haymarket.

Theatreland will be broadcast on Sky Arts in HD later this year.