Rose revival

Published Tuesday 15 March 2005 at 14:05

Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes, Financial Times chairman David Bell, Susannah York and Janet Suzman joined Stanley Wells (from left), director of the Rose Theatre Trust, to celebrate the launch of a £4million fundraising appeal for a full excavation of the Elizabethan playhouse - next to the newspaper’s head office - where works by Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe were performed.

They were among guests at a reception held on the site of the Bankside venue, which was discovered in 1989, as the trust announced its intention to make a formal application to the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The organisation plans to begin work on the presently untouched eastern side of the theatre, while continuing to investigate the section that was uncovered in 1989. It hopes to display its findings to the public as a permanent exhibition.