Bringing Swindon's Culture Home

Theatres Magazine Autumn 2017 Theatres Protection Fund Awards Showcase Dunoon Burgh Hall Moynet revealed Spotlight on Hull New Theatre Repurposing Boscombe’s Shelley Theatre Protecting theatres Bringing Swindon’s culture home Protecting theatres for everyone The outside of the Shelley Theatre Boscombe Theatres Trust when it was purchased in 2007. Trustees Tim Eyles (Chair) Richard Baldwin In this issue David Blyth Pam Bone 24 Dara O’Briain Paul Cartwright Paddy Dillon Ruth Eastwood David Ian Richard Johston Gary Kemp Simon Ricketts Peter Roberts Ann Skippers Anna Stapleton 2—3 Bringing Swindon’s Special Adviser Peter J Wilson culture home Consultants John Earl 5—9 28—29 Jonathan Lane Theatres Protection In the news Mark Price Fund Awards Staff Jon Morgan 30—31 Director 11—14 Our work Ross Anthony Showcase: Planning Adviser Claire Appleby Dunoon Burgh Hall Architecture Adviser 32—33 Faith Borerwe Protecting theatres Interim Finance Officer 17—18 Corinne Beaver Moynet revealed General Manager Kate Carmichael Communications Coordinator Marie Lane 20—21 Resource Centre Manager Spotlight on Stephanie Rolt Records Officer Hull New Theatre Tom Stickland Theatres Adviser 23—27 We believe that current and Repurposing future generations should have access to good quality theatre Shelley Theatre buildings, where they can Boscombe be inspired by, and enjoy, live theatre. Theatres Trust 22 Charing Cross Road London WC2H 0QL T 020 7836 8591 F 020 7836 3302 [email protected] Special Book London Theatres www.theatrestrust.org.uk @theatrestrust Discount Michael Coveney and Peter Dazeley Foreword | Mark Rylance Theatres Magazine for Friends Jon Morgan Publisher | Frances Lincoln Editor-in-chief & Corporate ISBN 9780711238619 Kate Carmichael Managing Editor Supporters Join leading theatre critic Michael Nicola Rowland Coveney on a tour of the forty-six Advertising Sales Diana Watt theatres which make London the Editorial Assistant theatre capital of the world. With © 2017 The Theatres Trust Charitable Fund. a foreword by Mark Rylance and All unsigned or otherwise uncredited articles are including stories of the architecture, the work of the Editors. The views expressed editorially or by correspondents in this magazine the staging and the productions are not necessarily those of the Trust. Notes, queries and letters are always welcome. that have defined each theatre as well as breathtaking never-seen- ISSN: 1759-7668 before photographs of the public Design: Vincent Design areas, auditorium and backstage Print: Lavenham Press by award-winning photographer Peter Dazeley, this is the book Front cover: Great Western Railway for any fan of the theatre. Mechanics Institution, large hall 1916 To receive a 10% discount on STEAM, Museum of the the book visit quartoknows.com Great Western Railway and enter discount code LT10. Valid to 12 October 2017. 1 Theatres Magazine Autumn Bringing 2017 Swindon’s culture home In advance of the Theatres Trust Conference on Theatres and Placemaking, Daniel Rose, Executive Director of the Swindon Mechanics’ Institution Trust, and also speaker at the conference, reminds us that the idea of culture and placemaking is not new. He argues that it’s time to revive nineteenth century community movements banding together to address mutual social, health, learning and cultural needs in order to transform the places where communities live and work. ‘A hive of community, culture, learning and creativity’ – marketing hyperbole straight from the latest regeneration project? Or the merits of a social, cultural and educational masterpiece stated too often that for a provincial town in the Institution Band, of nineteenth century forward thinking? post-Victorian era there was both variety and 1900 It’s the latter of course, because 175 years ago, range in the productions seen by the residents of STEAM, Museum of the the highly innovative and far-reaching work of Swindon. Swindon workers made up the cast of Great Western Railway Swindon’s Mechanics’ Institution was changing many productions and in turn toured the GWR lives and expectations in a fast-changing and network from London to the West Country. expanding town. The Mechanics’ was the epicentre of New The Great Western Railway (GWR) arrived in Swindon life, so popular and successful that 1842 to establish a new railway works, a site further buildings and organisations were chosen by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Daniel formed around it, including a host of theatrical Gooch. New Swindon was born. This was a site and performance based bodies, some still in at the base of a hill several miles from the small existence today. market settlement of Swindon, an agricultural The Institution continued to evolve and grow place little changed for hundreds of years. The until faced with gradual decline from the 1960s Railway Works were built in an area with no including the end of the theatre in 1976 with the houses, schools, recreational facilities, shops or creation by the Council of the modern Wyvern a market within easy reach, and against many Theatre. By 1986 with the closure of the Railway odds in these muddy fields emerged a thriving Works the Mechanics’ found itself closed and place known for its engineering success and a botched attempt by the local authority to skilled workforce. Less is known about the take on the building gave way to a series of social and cultural story that developed in ill-conceived schemes by private speculators the neighbouring Railway Village. resulting in eventual dereliction. The GWR provided jobs and built the houses Formed in 1995, The Mechanics’ Institution Trust but the majority of the not insignificant needs operates in a dual role – both as a building and growing pains of New Swindon fell to the preservation trust and community development workers themselves to resolve – a relevant social enterprise. In many ways we were ahead reminder for many towns and cities today that of our time by combining what is commonly a job and a house does not in itself make a referred to now as ‘people and place’, however viable and successful community. Even before our inspiration for this approach comes from the Institution built its premises in 1854, the the past. In its heyday the Mechanics’ Institution organisation was rising to the social, health, was about far more than just a building. Its learning and cultural needs of the day. reach and connection into the community was Among the many aspects of this imposing extensive. Contrary to popular mythology, the building was the impressive theatre that formed Institution was not set up by Brunel, nor was the heart and soul of the town. It cannot be it by virtue of paternal benevolence from the 2 Theatres Great Western Railway. The workers themselves with it the skill of ‘making it work’ forgotten. Magazine Autumn built and managed the building. They were a Before the major challenges to local government 2017 membership body with each workshop electing finances in the last few years we had already a representative to sit on the Management started to see the rise in commercial involvement Committee with a strictly non-partisan and in leisure and even local green spaces – in this non-denominational approach. instance the role has become corporation to customer. But all around us we see another Our Trust reflects this original role today, we approach emerging, or actually re-emerging – too are a membership body having recruited that of community control, management and several thousand members over the years. We enterprise, perhaps most noticeable first in the continue to take on properties surrounding the rise of community pubs and post offices. As Mechanics’ such as a preserved railway workers localists we relish the opportunity to take back house as an independent museum, a community control but this needs to be enabled by a local facility in the former hospital and one of the government that wants to do it because it sees corner pubs which will become a café for the it as the right thing to do to strengthen and community later this year. But we don’t just care empower communities and not simply because about bricks and mortar for their historical value, at best ‘we can’t afford it anymore,’ or at worst we also see their potential for transforming how when community influence is met with a degree local people feel about their place. And we aim of suspicion and attempt at taking power or to bring about regeneration through community credit from the local ‘authority’. enterprise rather than these buildings simply being seen for their narrow economic value, Our central mission to regenerate the Mechanics’ for private control and profit. Our extensive Institution as a place and as a way of doing programme of community development places things continues. The ethos of the original us at the heart of the neighbourhood, a valued organisation has once again become highly part of people’s lives running and facilitating relevant to our lives. The Mechanics’ Institution everything from a community cinema to a youth as both an organisation and a building club, community gardening schemes to toddler understood the social and cultural challenges of groups – we try to be responsive to the needs the day and sought to solve them, with lasting, and aspirations of the community adapting our innovative success. priorities over time. Public services will continue to shrink and with Of course we face numerous challenges – a host of social and economic challenges for resources, becoming financially sustainable our society the role of places like the Mechanics’ and the danger of overstretching our voluntary as a hive of social, community and cultural capacity. However at the top of the list of enlightenment is once again crucial. challenges sits the role of local government. The Mechanics’ Institution of the twenty-first When the Mechanics’ was first created the century should enrich a town by fostering a vast tentacles of the local council simply didn’t place for collaborative thinking, the sharing of exist.

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