As a councillor for the past 18 months I've been giving this some thought - but as a theatre practitioner [I'm a freelance theatre sound designer} I've been giving consideration of this subject from the time I arrived in Exeter in 2004.
I've read the letters in the Express and Echo not only in recent weeks that the proposed development on the Bus Station site would afford a great position for such a theatre, but as far back as when there were ideas to site a theatre in the old Debenham building. I even wrote to the E&E myself suggesting that the Debenhams building was better suited to social housing than a theatre = oh how times change!
However, I believe that they are many, many barriers to this proposal being economically viable in the current climate.
What follows below is my own personal opinions, and in no way reflects the official policy of Exeter City Council.
I hear and read residents of Exeter wanting a city centre theatre to rival Plymouth's Theatre Royal.
So I can only assume that to achieve that objective it has to be able to offer a similar artistic programme?
So that dictates it needs to have a capacity of around 1200 seats, certainly 1000+. To fill that auditorium 8 times a week on a tour would mean it would need approx 8% of the population of Exeter to attend each week [capacity = 9600, population = 119,600]
As it happens, I spent 6 months on a No1 tour of An Inspector Calls which arrived in Plymouth in December last year. As a consequence, I am fully aware of the factors that enable such a tour to function.
During that tour I entered into a discussion on twitter with the enigmatic @LonWon about my thoughts for a theatre for Exeter under the hashtag #Theatre4Exeter to go alongside his[?] own thoughts on Exeter's theatres on their own blog.
These tweeted thoughts were brought together and combined into a Storify thread.
A #Theatre4Exeter|Update Storify thread was posted over the weekend as a discussion with @CafeAt36 about #Theatre4Exeter following the interesting exhibition of the history of Exeter's Theatre Royal in Longbrook Street that was held at the Guildhall on Saturday 22 September.
A #Theatre4Exeter|Update Storify thread was posted over the weekend as a discussion with @CafeAt36 about #Theatre4Exeter following the interesting exhibition of the history of Exeter's Theatre Royal in Longbrook Street that was held at the Guildhall on Saturday 22 September.
A thousand seater venue
During the we visited the Waterside in Aylesbury which opened in the autumn of 2010 - and so gave me a concrete idea of the sums involved.
The venue [including overspends] cost £47 million to build
And since a new artistic venture such as this is unlikely to survive without public subsidy, the local council pays a management company [ATG/Ambassadors Theatre Group] some £25,000 per month to run the venue on their behalf.
That also highlights that the annual running costs paid to ATG [£288,000] are considerably smaller that Aylesbury Vale District Council used to spend on running their previous venue
"But the council says the [Waterside] theatre is a vast improvement on its predecessor, the Civic Centre, which was losing more than £740,000 a year when it closed"
It's also worth noting that recently ATG have announced that they couldn't make a profit for the theatres they ran for the council in Stoke-on-Trent and have sought the renegotiate their fee of £596,000 per year.
At the recent exhibition about the history of the old Theatre Royal in Longbrook Street, someone overheard me mentioning these figures and commented "I'm glad it's not my money". If the city council started along these lines, it would be funded by Council Tax, so yes it would be your money.
So back to Plymouth, and why do those big musicals and other productions open at the Theatre Royal. A major factor is the existence of a £8 million facility known as TR2.
Here workshops make the sets, props and costumes for productions - both at the Theatre Royal and elsewhere - and have rehearsal facilities. These enable those musicals to rehearse on set [a rare luxury that saves on production time on-stage] and can accommodate the band/orchestra for those rehearsals [again leading to savings on costs and time].
Productions currently appearing at the Theatre Royal in Plymouth would likely to be subject to exclusion clauses - normally 50 miles. Since Exeter falls within that 50 mile radius, it would be highly unlikely that those shows would be able to perform in the city anytime during the initial tour(s).
Back to cost. Arts Council England currently subsidise the venue to the tune of £1,178,579. Current ACE funding would be unlikely to assist a similar sized theatre in Exeter, and I am very fearful of future ACE funding across the country when the spending review is announced in December's Autumn Statement from the Chancellor.
And let's not forget that even with that subsidy, the cost of top price tickets for Oliver were in the region of £50.
This 1500 capacity theatre [coincidently owned and operarted by ATF] opened in 1961, not too long before the 900 seat Theatre Royal in Exeter closed its doors in 1963. If that hadn't happened back then, many of these conversations would be different now.
Again, exclusion clauses could and would cause programme difficulties with those shows that people want to see.
And how often do they appear at the theatre? Between now and the New Year, the programme doesn't have any of those blockbuster events, just one-off events.
There is nothing wrong with this, but I want people to be clear that a city centre theatre may not be able to offer the blockbuster shows week-in, week-out for 52 weeks a year. And then will that give rise to the venue being called an expensive white elephant when it isn't full or showing those prestigious productions.
It also must be remembered the Princess has received constant funding since opening, whereas Exeter's funding has been directed towards the Northcott since it opened. Funding a new theatre from a standing start is a tall order.
So all this us to the house on hill - the Northcott. I understand that many would prefer it not to be there, but we have to live with the fact that it is.
The history of late is a little chequered but it has to said loud and bold that it is open for business.
There is a myth that transport links are poor.
Although there is now only limited car parking space [55 spaces] adjacent to the theatre, there are now additional car parks within 5 mins walking distance
Although there is now only limited car parking space [55 spaces] adjacent to the theatre, there are now additional car parks within 5 mins walking distance
And there is the option of public transport - the D service is regular service from the city centre to Exeter Northcott Theatre.
For evening shows Monday to Saturday it is possible to catch the one timetabled at 7pm from the City Centre and arrive at the Northcott in time for a 7.30pm show. And getting back to the city centre is just as convenient - the D bus leaves for the city centre at 21 mins and 51 mins past the hour after 6pm and continues until 11.51pm (Mon to Sat) and 11.21pm (Sundays)
I've heard comments about the bitty nature of the programme, and the fact that they no longer have shows that run for 3 weeks. That's because they no longer produce their own shows. But that's not unique to Exeter - even the theatres that still do produce their own work rarely survive on that model.
Probably the Royal Exchange in Manchester is one of the few that still does, but the major repertory theatres of the 1980s and 1980s [Coventry Belgrade Theatre, Leicester Curve and Northern Stage in Newcastle to name some of those that I've worked at in the past] now have home-produced productions supplemented with in-coming tours.
But what the new format at the Northcott means is that it can put on diverse programme of events to appeal to different audiences.
For this new regime, it receives money from ACE South West. In January 2012, the Northcott was awarded £125,000 per year for the next three years from the strategic fund for theatre in Exeter and one of the aims of this fund is to support mid-scale touring productions in the city.
This means that the Exeter Northcott is now able to present the best in mid-scale theatre - productions that are often not seen elsewhere in the SW peninsula.
I'm already looking forward to Footsbarn's Indian Tempest later this week as they were one of the companies that inspired me as I was growing up in Plymouth in the early 1970s. I was disappointed to find that this production was opening in Dublin the day I was flying back to Exeter earlier this year - and would have travelled long distances to see it in the UK. Now here it on my doorstep.
The same goes for Shobana Jeyasingh's Classic Cut and the modern retelling of the Medea myth by one of the UK's exciting new playwrights Mike Barlett
I've heard the charge that the programming is "too arty". It may apply to my choices, but surely not to Mansfield Park or the wide range of music, comedy and family events they are now putting on?
Indeed the Christmas show, Tall Stories The Snail and The Whale gained great reviews in Edinburgh this summer and follows on from the success the same company had with their tour of The Gruffallo.
And in recent months we've seen ETT's production of Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing and the Northcott often plays host to our very own Theatre Alibi, including the recent tour of The Crowstarver which opened at the Northcott
I reiterate that each of these productions may not attract everyone, but over the course of a season there is probably something for most audiences.
Other venues
I maintain that we offer a wide range of live events in the city - indeed a wider range than exists in Plymouth. We've the Bike Shed, Cygnet's New Theatre, the Barnfield, Exeter Phoenix and the Corn Exchange offering up fare that misses Plymouth.
On top of this we've seen the emergence of the Ignite Festival from the Exeter Fringe Festival, capable of holding its own among the great number of similar enterprises springing up around the country in recent years.
I mention these not as an example of complacency, but as a reflection of the great wealth of live performance that already exists in the city - and may be as deserving of City Council support as the holy grail of a large commercial [but unviable?and unattainable?] city centre theatre
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