Camden Roundhouse set for a renaissance

By Chris Sheppard May 15, 2004 City University

Many great rock songs have long associated alcohol and railroads with broken hearts, and musicians spanning from Johnny Cash to Johnny Rotten have written passionately about the best cure for good love gone bad-a fresh bottle of whiskey and a long train ride to nowhere. It seems fitting then that the once legendary Roundhouse in is scheduled to reopen in the spring of 2005 and reclaim its status as London’s most treasured musical house of healing.

Built in 1846 as a locomotive shed and repair depot when train lines were expanded into north London, it utilized a central turntable to service trains before turning them back around and onto the tracks for their next trip. But when newer and larger locomotives were introduced in 1870, the Roundhouse could no longer accommodate them and was boarded shut.

Soon after, the London Railroads decided they no longer had any use for the building, and it was sold to Gilbey’s Gin Distillers and used as an alcohol warehouse for almost 100 years.

In the mid 1960’s, however, the Greater London Council had an acute need for more performance space to accommodate the growing north London arts scene, and they immediately acquired the freehold on the Roundhouse. It then quickly evolved into a major attraction for some of the biggest names in music and entertainment. After the founding of Centre 42, the Roundhouse’s in-house performance group, and the conversion of canal-side warehouses in Camden Town into arts and crafts workshops, the Roundhouse and its nearby environs challenged the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in San Francisco as a counter-cultural mecca, drawing visitors from all over the globe.

The first significant musical happening occurred on October 15, 1966, when and the played for an audience of just over 2000 in the parking lot.

The legendary nights of music continued throughout the late 1960’s and into the early 1980’s, and the Roundhouse had solidified its reputation as the home of London’s cutting edge rock scene. , and -in their only ever UK performance-each performed sold out shows there. Marc Bolan of T. Rex introduced radical new glam rock at the Roundhouse, and the Sex Pistols blew audiences away with their ear-shattering style of music called punk.

Many groundbreaking and avant garde theatrical productions also occurred during the “glory years” of the 1960s, most notably when the experimental Living Theatre of New York performed for packed crowds in 1969. even launched her stage career at the Roundhouse, starring as Ophelia in a 1969 production of Hamlet.

The excess and malaise gripping most of British society by the early 1980’s then caught up with the Roundhouse. The building’s decaying structure seemed to mirror its internal management problems, and it closed after being sold to the Camden Council in 1983.

Except for a few illicit acid house , the Roundhouse went essentially unused over the next fourteen years, until 1997 when multi-millionaire financier and banker turned toy-maker Torquil Norman stepped in.

The Cambridge and Harvard educated Norman built his fortune on Wall Street, before returning to London and seeking creative enlightenment outside the highly structured world of finance. Deciding on toy making, he founded Bluebird Toys in 1979.

Bluebird Toys went on to great success and made Norman a very wealthy man. It had the second highest selling doll of all time-besides Barbie-called the Polly Pocket doll. After cashing in his shares, worth £30m, Norman sold the company in 1996. He then struck it rich a second time after founding the Norman Trust. Looking to do something positive for the struggling Camden community, he and his wife, after hearing the Roundhouse was up for sale, bought it in 1996.

Norman then completed a deal with the Camden Council, whereby he would put up £5m of his own seed money to finance the restoration and redevelopment of the Roundhouse through the Roundhouse Trust.

He was moved, he said, after he “came to realise the formal education system was discriminating more and more in favour of those who could just pass exams, and against those who were just as creative, but not academically, and were left by the wayside.”

Yet despite Norman’s impressive financial resources, for the Roundhouse to succeed it would also need the backing of other interested, wealthy individuals and the deep pockets that only large corporations could provide. To convince these investors, he created valuable buzz and publicity by appointing a board of directors staffed with several infamous Roundhouse alumni, including Sir , Nick Mason of Pink Floyd, Terry Gilliam of Monty Python, and film director Lord Attenborough. Besides contributing money themselves, they have also worked as consultants and fundraisers on the project.

The Roundhouse Trust has raised nearly £24m out of the £28m it needs to finish the work, which started May 10. Media companies like Bloomberg, EMI, BBC, and Time Out magazine have made large donations for naming rights to studio rooms and spaces, helping to allay the cost of outfitting the Roundhouse with the latest performance technology.

Along with the main performance space, a state of the art Creative Centre for London’s aspiring entertainment talent will be established as a core “springboard” for students without access to these types of facilities.

Sonia Noy of the Roundhouse Trust said: “The idea is to nurture local talent, and our performance, studio and practice spaces will provide virtually everything artists will need in house. There will also be workshops taking place everyday, ranging from one or two hour courses to week long or month long vocational projects. The idea is that any young person who comes in will be able to develop whatever skills they like, and get help finding jobs in that particular area.”

The Creative Centre will be built within the labyrinthine ground level area under the main space, known as the undercroft. It will house studio facilities for music, digital media, TV, film, radio production and performing arts. Mentors from the creative industries will provide guidance, and the Creative Centre and main performance space will be linked so students can interact and collaborate with professional performers and production teams.

“The problem has been these types of facilities are usually scattered all over London, so it will be great to bring it all into one space,” said Ms. Noy.

The new Roundhouse will differ from the scruffy original in significant ways. To lower operating costs it actively seeks corporate sponsors and media events designed to fetch lucrative advertising and promotional dollars-generally shunned during its anti- establishment heyday. Ms. Noy said, “Everyone’s very conscious of remaining true to the original spirit of the place and careful not to make it too pristine and perfect.”

Architects John McAslan & Partners have designed the protected building so that original brick walls remain exposed, and much of the old ironwork will remain. Because the old glass was painted over in black, a new glass-fronted foyer will be built with restaurants, coffee shop and a bar- all essential elements of corporate entertaining or bringing people in off the street searching for live entertainment.

But the main performance space will be modified significantly.

“The idea is to be able to stage things here that you couldn’t in other places,” said Ms. Hoy. “Here we will be able to do theatre in the round, or a proscenium arch performance, have 3300 standing for a major concert, or sit 1700 for a less formal show. We also want to encourage physical theatre here, because it’s not as big in Britain as in Europe, and it should be,” she said.

The renaissance of the Roundhouse will go far in maintaining the cultural and bohemian pre-eminence of Camden Town while enhancing London’s reputation as a world class entertainment venue. Camden has always attracted artistic types, beginning with Irish folk singers who were drawn to the area around 1900 by cheap housing and numerous pubs. Famous writers who lived there include Mary Shelley, Sylvia Plath, and Alan Bennett, and Batman director Tim Burton currently resides there. The Britpop movement was born in August 1995 in Camden Town when local residents from Blur and Oasis each had hit singles released on the same day. Rock fans also flocked to the area to see , Pulp, The Stone Roses and Radiohead.

Thankfully, in an age of decreased arts spending the news bodes well for fans in London- and especially the historic heart of it all, Camden Town.