Every good pantomime needs a menacing villain to threaten all the fun, and this season the theatrical baddie is easy to identify. Christmas shows the length of Britain are battling a foe that could well be dubbed “King Raac”, as the discovery of faulty concrete brings down the curtain at a string of venues.
Pantomimes, crucial box office earners for provincial theatres, have been widely jeopardised, with auditoriums deemed unsafe from Motherwell, Carlisle and Cardiff, to Peterborough, Dartford and Redhill, after the detection of seams of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, known as Raac.
In Solihull, prospects looked particularly grim for Jack and the Beanstalk. Ladders on the stage at the town’s theatre, the Core, were not there to erect the famous tall green stalk that Jack must climb in the fairy story. Instead, builders had been called in to tackle Raac, uncovered during an inspection. “This is deeply disappointing news for everyone including customers, hirers, performers, promoters and the whole team at the Core,” a spokesperson said as the closure was announced last month.
Surveys of similar, council-owned venues built between the mid-1950s and mid-1990s in England, Scotland and Wales have led to serious concern that the ageing material makes them prone to collapse. As a result, Cumberland council shut down the Sands Centre in Carlisle, cancelling the “vast majority of shows” until the end of next year, while at the Forum theatre in Romiley, Stockport council is waiting for a surveyor’s report before reopening. In Cardiff, St David’s Hall will remain dark until the new year, after closing its doors last month.
The Theatres Trust is aware of at least 14 venues that have had to shut at this financially vital time of year, alongside a handful of others that are working around part-closures of their site.
But this weekend there is hope of a happy ending for some affected shows. That’s because, just as every pantomime needs a dastardly adversary, traditionally there must also be a magical “transformation scene”, a moment when the set suddenly changes with special-effects trickery. This Christmas, the transformation required is of a different order. So the Solihull pantomime, like several other endangered productions, is moving to a new venue. Three days ago, tickets for their show went on sale at the Artrix arts centre, 20 miles away in Bromsgrove.
In Scotland another production of Jack and the Beanstalk will move from Motherwell Concert Hall and Theatre to the Ravenscraig Regional Sports Facility, after Raac planks were found in the roof. And in the south of England, a pair of productions of Beauty and the Beast are both transferring wholesale to new spaces. Orchard theatre’s Dartford pantomime will now go on at a new Orchard West venue, where the EastEnders acor and singer Shona McGarty will lead the cast as Belle, while at Redhill in Surrey, the Harlequin theatre’s version of this story will now be performed in a circus tent in a nearby park.
“It’s all still happening, but in a really different way this year,” said Duane Kirkland, head of leisure at Reigate and Banstead borough council. “Pretty much everything has had to be different to bring it all together inside a big top. Our view is that the show must go on, as it is a massive mainstay of our year and something we do ourselves, with our own pantomime production company.”
Finding new ways to install scenery, without a high “flies” system above the stage, is one of the major challenges facing Kirkland’s team, with 40 days till opening night: “We’ve gone from a space we know and love to one we have not seen yet, so we have had to go back to a blank piece of paper.”
The Harlequin also needs to build a pop-up cafe and bar in the neighbouring Redhill Memorial Park. “We did not want to disappoint the 16,000 people that usually come, as it is a huge part of a lot of families’ Christmas tradition. There is the financial aspect of course, but it is also about the relationship we have with the community,” said Kirkland.
The decision to switch venue at short notice is defended by council leader Richard Biggs: “The decision had to be made promptly, and the team have done incredibly well to come up with this new concept. We’ve got to take positives out of this. There are more tickets available, for a start, as it will be a slightly bigger auditorium,” he said.
“We don’t know how people will receive it, but there is a sort of connection between a panto and a circus, although after research we can’t see whether it has ever happened before.”
Concerted efforts to remove Raac are also paying off for some theatres. Northampton’s Royal & Derngate, shut on 4 September after Raac was found in the foyer, but is now back in business, with the Derngate stage opening last Tuesday.
The Dixon studio space at Southend’s Palace theatre is also due to reopen following building work, and at Peterborough intensive repairs to the Key theatre should ensure it reopens in time. The main auditorium was closed last month after the discovery of Raac, but contractors say Aladdin will open as planned on 2 December.
