Theatre Envy

I've recently returned from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and I'm still seeing letters in the Express and Echo suggesting that Exeter is a theatrical desert.

Now I grew up in a cultural desert. In the Plymouth of the 1970s there was almost no theatre - only an old run-down tin shed on the Hoe and the small Atheneum Theatre in Drake's Circus.

The only professional theatre I saw when growing up was a Northcott touring production of Julius Caesar for my O-Level English Lit . I still remember it - the star was Brian Protheroe [who later went on to have fame with hit single Pinball] and carrying a spear in his theatrical debut was Robert Lindsay [now what did happen to him?].

In 1974 I headed up the line to Manchester [well, Salford really] to study Biology with the ambition to become a research [marine?] biologist - and to follow my then passion, Manchester United [no need to link!]. But here I discovered an new passion, theatre.

There were many theatres in and around Manchester, but the best was the Royal Exchange Theatre Company, whose performances took place in a 7-sided, glass walled space-ship module, suspended from the huge marble pillars in the Great Hall of the historic Victorian Cotton Exchange Buildings in Manchester City Centre.

Here I saw Edward Fox, Vanessa Redgrave, Albert Finney, Tom Courtney,  Lindsay Duncan [how could I forget her first appearance in Twelfth Night dressed only in a white bath towel?] and Robert Lindsay [yes, him again!].

It inspired me enough to use my interest in sound to give up the microscope and use the microphone to forge a career as a theatre sound designer.

Throughout my career, which started in 1978 at the Octagon Theatre in Bolton, there's always been a discussion about whether the arts provide a useful service to society - and the unspoken question of "should it be subsidised?"

So what a pleasure on arriving in Exeter in 2004. The E&E letters page was awash with demanding a city centre theatre [as the Northcott was too far from the city centre] - and the old Debenhams building was suggested as a site for the new venture. My own letter on the subject to the E&E was published in April.

The city landscape has moved on and the Debenhams building is currently rising phoenix-like as the restyled John Lewis buidlng, But the siren calls remain and new site being suggested is on the soon-to-be redeveloped Bus and Coach Station.

The letters have reappeared in the E&E - as have articles like this one from Steve Bloomfield. But i'm still convinced - as a theatre practitioner - that these calls are flawed, and a city centre theatre cannot be delivered as an economic reality.

I've also moved on,  and am now an Exeter City Councillor representing the West of Exe Ward of Cowick as well as continuing my career in theatre. So in my next post I want to try and explain why I don't think a large-scale theatre is feasible for Exeter.