The play’s the thing – but its success depends on the theatre too
What makes a good theatre? Critics are not the most reliable guides. We sit in the best seats, don’t have to pay, and are there to assess the performance rather than the building. If ever I have wanted guidance on architectural issues, I have turned to Iain Mackintosh, who from 1973 worked for Theatre Projects Consultants, has designed many successful theatres and has now put his encyclopedic knowledge into a book called Theatre Spaces 1920-2020. But the revelation comes in the subtitle: Finding the Fun in Functionalism. At the heart of the book lies an assault on modernist concrete buildings and a celebration of any theatre where actor and audience enjoy an easy rapport.
Mackintosh covers a lot of ground and tells a number of good stories, two of which relate to the old Shakespeare Memorial theatre in Stratford, which opened in 1932. Derided at the time as a “jam factory”, yet capable of infinite adaptation, it has long been attributed to a 29-year-old modernist architect, Elisabeth Scott. But Mackintosh implicitly endorses the view that it was the work of her father, Maurice Chesterton (cousin of the famous GK). He also quotes a story about Tyrone Guthrie, on being offered co-directorship of the theatre in 1950 by Anthony Quayle, saying he would only accept if they built a new theatre with the audience on three sides. Asked what should be done with the existing theatre, Guthrie replied, “Bulldoze it and push it into the river.”
In seeking an antidote to modernism, Mackintosh rejoices in two things. One is spaces built of brick and plaster, which, unlike concrete, are adaptable. The other is what came to be known as the “courtyard theatre”, modelled on rectangular, galleried 18thcentury playhouses such as the Georgian Theatre Royal in Richmond in North Yorkshire. This was the inspiration both for the Cottesloe (now the Dorfman) at the National Theatre, and the Tricycle (now the Kiln) in Kilburn, which owe everything to Mackintosh’s design. But Mackintosh also singles out the Swan in Stratford, where he was not involved, and where the architect, Michael Reardon, was inspired by galleried churches whose architecture “had the power to draw the audience together in a way that modern theatres do not”.
Mackintosh reserves his anti-modernist scorn for the two main auditoria at the National Theatre, and it is here that he and I part company. I concede that there is some truth in Bill Bryden’s observation that the Lyttelton is “the best cinema in London”, and that both it and the Olivier have acoustic issues. But when Mackintosh writes “it is hard to raise a laugh on the wide stages of the Olivier and the Lyttelton”,
I gasp in disbelief: I didn’t noticeJack Absolute Flies Againin the former or The Motive and the Cuein the latter having any great problem. Mackintosh also underrates the importance of perfect sightlines: a cardinal point of Denys Lasdun’s original design. He attacks the steeply raked, fan-shaped auditorium of which the Olivier is a prime example, yet I have sat at the back of it and had a decent view. In contrast, I nearly quit a West End theatre recently because the height of the admittedly restless man in front of me blocked out half the stage. (I was glad I didn’t remonstrate with him as he turned out to be the co-lyricist of the show in question.)
Where I agree with Mackintosh is in his emphasis on the actor-audience relationship. On that count, in addition to the Swan, the Dorfman and the Kiln, I would place the Crucible in Sheffield, the Minerva in Chichester, the Orange Tree in Richmond and the Young Vic in London among my favourite spaces. Looking to the future, Mackintosh also makes a sharp point when he suggests that the easy availability of live cinema transmissions will eventually kill off touring theatre. But the virtue of his book is that it is the work of a knowledgable enthusiast, and proves that, while the play’s the thing, the frame in which it is seen is crucial to our enjoyment.
Theatre Spaces: 1920-2020 is published by The Society for Theatre Research and Bloomsbury-Methuen
able to send people to Rwanda, as there won’t be a so-called “safe third country” to remove people to. If the supreme court upholds the recent appeal court ruling that Rwanda is not a safe country to send refugees, officials know the bill will be in tatters.
Even if the supreme court rules in the government’s favour, it will be impossible for Rwanda to receive more than a few thousand people each year. Tens of thousand will be left in limbo in some sort of Home Office-procured accommodation. The Refugee Council’s analysis has found that even if Rwanda is able to take 10,000 people seeking asylum in each year in the first three years of the legislation coming into effect, almost 200,000 men, women and children will have had their asylum claims deemed inadmissible but will not have been removed.
Living in limbo, unable to work and facing destitution, those who don’t disappear will be reliant on Home Office support and accommodation indefinitely. This will come at a huge cost – about £9bn will be spent over three years locking up refugees in detention centres and accommodating people who can’t be removed to other countries.
It’s difficult to see how the new law will act as the deterrent the government says it is. Instead, it will make matters much worse and cause immense human misery.
Of course, it doesn’t have to be like this. We should always give people a fair hearing on UK soil, actually return people humanely who aren’t granted asylum, expand safe routes through some initial simple measures such as relaxing the limited rules on family reunion, and join forces with other nations and the UN to increase foreign aid and improve conflict resolution. Without global leaders coming together to address the reasons why people flee, the numbers seeking safety in the UK and Europe are not going to reduce.
The government has chosen a path that doesn’t reflect the values most of us hold dear: of showing compassion, respect and humanity for those people who through no fault of their own become refugees, and who are simply searching for safety.
Enver Solomon is chief executive of the Refugee Council
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