The Stage

Plan for black-led theatre never required £7m, says Longman

Published Tuesday 9 August 2005 at 15:30 by Nuala Calvi

Director of the Theatres Trust Peter Longman has criticised backers of the failed project to create Britain’s first black-led theatre venue, claiming they put up almost £7 million unnecessarily.

Talawa theatre company was to have recieved the money from Arts Council England, the Millennium Commission and the London Development Agency for a building on the site of the old Westminster Theatre. ACE pulled out of the project because of internal disputes at Talawa, followed by the Millennium Commission, which gave the company until this week to find £4 million to replace the arts council grant or lose its £1.8 million funding.

But, according to Longman, site developer Rosebury Homes was subject to a planning agreement which meant it was obliged to build and fit out a replacement for the Westminster, with or without Talawa’s money.

Longman told The Stage: “The only cost Talawa was liable to find was buying the lease and its own expenses, such as legal costs and project management. If you take away the cost of the theatre shell and fitting it out, there is no way that should have amounted to £7 million, let alone the £9 million they were trying to raise.

“I do not understand why the backers of Talawa put up more money than they needed to. ACE should have known better - they had experts crawling all over the thing. I was constantly reminding and warning people that there was no need to raise money to build or fit out the building, only to pay for the lease. I do not know if they were so keen to help Talawa that they ignored it.”

A spokeswoman for Arts Council England admitted that if Talawa had not been around, the developer would have been liable for the whole cost of the project. But she said this was a worst-case scenario.

“The fallback, if the project failed, was that [the developers] would create a fully-fitted theatre,” she said. “But the agreement reached with Westminster council had been for the developers to build the shell of the theatre and for Talawa to manage the development of the project and occupy the building. Our funding therefore was to support Talawa to manage the development of the project, for the theatre to be fully fitted out, and to enable them to purchase the lease.”

Nadia Stern, Talawa’s interim chief executive, insisted that public funders would not have backed the project unless they believed they were getting good value for money. She denied that the developers were obliged to fit the theatre out to the same standard as the Westminster, simply to fit out a theatre.

“That could have been done very minimally and might not have been done to Talawa’s requirements as a producing company, which needed rehearsal rooms and offices. If you want control over what kind of theatre you are going to end up with, you’re going to pay for it.”