Dame Jenni joins Parky in battle to restore theatre
THE BROADCASTER Dame Jenni Murray has lent her voice to a £5m campaign to add a new auditorium to the Victorian Civic Theatre in her home town of Barnsley.
The Civic was partly refurbished in 2009 but a third of its Grade II-listed premises are currently unfinished and unused.
Dame Jenni, who has for 30 years presented Radio Four’s
Woman’s Hour, joins Sir Michael Parkinson, ballerina Tala LeeTurton and celebrity hairdresser Andrew Barton in spearheading the new campaign, which aims to reopen 22,000 sq ft of space.
She said: “Access to the arts is incredibly important.
“I was very lucky because my mother was very worried that I’d have a broad Yorkshire accent. She sent me to elocution lessons, I think I was five when I started, which was quite young to be taught posh.
“I went to a speech and drama teacher, and she would take us to Leeds and to Sheffield when the big companies toured from London. I saw Laurence Olivier – all the great actors of the time – and we went to the Sheffield Playhouse regularly.
“I had that range of culture, right down to going to Locke Park in Barnsley where they hosted an open-air musical every summer. That formed the basis of my life really. It’s absolutely vital that we consider the arts every bit as important as the sciences.”
Sir Michael, who is patron of the Civic, has called for more support for the arts in the North, saying: “Barnsley sits there and it’s vulnerable, and what it deserves, and what these areas didn’t get, was an adequate replacement for the pits.”
He said the town, and communities across the North, were “dying on their feet”, adding: “They need something to aspire to. Arts, music particularly, are important.”
He added: “Without entertainment, where are we?”
Helen Ball, chief executive of the Civic, said: “Barnsley punches above its weight and makes an important contribution to the nation’s cultural landscape.”