A sneak preview of the RSC's new home (From The Oxford Times)

A sneak preview of the RSC's new home

3:32pm Wednesday 7th July 2010 in

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What do you call a bevy of drama critics in workmen’s boots and hard hats? Not a few of us thought ‘Village People’ as we donned these unaccustomed accoutrements in the offices of the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon last month. But if you’re going to tour a building site, then the rules say you must dress like a builder.

The site we were visiting was that of the company’s Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres where a £112.8m transformation — part restoration, part rebuilding — is nearing completion. The RSC’s artistic director Michael Boyd (right), understandably fired with enthusiasm for this dream building, led the party round.

The original plan, conceived under Mr Boyd’s predecessor Adrian Noble, had involved the complete demolition of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, which opened in 1932 to the design of Elisabeth Scott. Fortunately, this was rejected, meaning that one of the country’s few iconic (if not massively attractive) buildings by a woman architect was preserved for posterity.

The new scheme, by Simon Erridge and Rab Bennetts of Bennetts Associates, preserves the shell of the building and places within it a new circular auditorium conceived (like the temporary Courtyard Theatre along the road) on Elizabethan lines.

Externally, the building looks better than it did before. with unsightly later additions such as the terrace café and restaurant, stripped away and original brickwork revealed. Specialists have spent months restoring old brickwork. As many as 168,000 new bricks, plus 14,000 special bricks, have been hand-thrown in the Forest of Dean to match the original walls.

In the auditorium, where workers from an Italian company were busily fitting the seats, we learned how things will improve both for actors and those paying to see them. Greater immediacy is assured, Michael Boyd told us, through a significant reduction (27m to 15m) in the distance from the stage to the farthest seat.

The new stage basement is 7m deep and allows actors, scenery and props to rise from beneath the stage during a production. The rough required height was determined by measuring an actor wearing a crown, sitting on top of a throne on a scenic lift.

The new powered flying system is more energy-efficient owing to its battery system that allows energy generated by scenery flying in to be stored and used when the same piece flies out.

Mr Boyd is particularly pleased with the new technical equipment being installed which he says will bring a huge advance on what the RSC can offer in visual magic.

“We have been living on thin gruel at the Courtyard and I can’t tell you how much we are looking forward to doing something really showy here.”

So when will this be?

The RST and the Swan (now linked by a new colonnade) will be open for a series of preview events in November. The first performances, of as yet unnamed pieces from the current repertoire — I’ll bet the excellent Morte d’Arthur is one — will be given next February/March, with the first new productions specially designed for the new theatre following in April.

These are exciting times for a theatre company that has given me over the years more delight than any other.