Shunt plans to relocate to new London Bridge venue
Experimental theatre collective Shunt is laying plans to move into a new venue in the London Bridge area when it leaves its current home this week, after almost six years at the site.
A scene from Money, the current Shunt production being performed at the new venue in Bermondsey Street Photo: Tristram Kenton
The company has been asked to move out of the vaults of London Bridge Station - where it hosted late-night bar and performance venue the Shunt Lounge - by Network Rail, which is planning to expand the station under a major redevelopment project called the Thameslink Programme.
Speaking to The Stage, Shunt co-founder David Rosenberg revealed that the company will now move into another site in London Bridge, where it will continue to host its mixed art programme. A formal announcement about the new venue is due in the coming weeks.
Rosenberg said: “When we first moved in [to the vaults], we thought it was going to be only for a year or so. Thanks to the generosity of Network Rail we have been able to stay there for this amount of time. We always knew that our time was limited in London Bridge Station.
“It [the new site] will probably be a very different space. The key part of the project is for a night time arts space where there is a variety of work being shown across arts forms, including live music, film, installation and performance, which will support artists trying out new work. It will still be a place of experimentation.”
Earlier this year, Shunt took over a former cigar warehouse in London Bridge, which it has been given permission to occupy until January 2011. The space is being used to stage its new show Money - a modern take of Emile Zola’s L’Argent - which is to extend its run by three months to March 2010.
The company is also one of two bidders vying to be the cultural resident in a 8,000 sqm space within the proposed One Tower Bridge scheme - a development of 374 riverside homes near Tower Bridge.
Shunt is up against the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum, and if successful will be able to relocate to the site in 2012. A decision on the winning bidder is expected to be announced at the end of this year, or early in 2011.
The company became one of Arts Council England’s regularly funded organisations during its last funding round - it receives almost £150,000 annually.
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