The Watford Palace Theatre is 'Back with a Bang'! So says all the publicity material anyway. But what exactly does this mean? In July 2002 the theatre closed its doors for the last time prior to a major refurbishment. Two years and £8.7m later, the wait is over and the doors to the beautiful Edwardian theatre are set to re-open once again. So what can we expect?  | | Workmen in one of the boxes |
Artistic Director Lawrence Till is clear. He wants a theatre that should be at the centre of cultural life in Hertfordshire and one from which no-one should feel excluded. He wants to produce new work, give old plays a modern spin and present productions that are exciting and relevant to young people as well as reflecting the cultural diversity of the region. It sounds as though he's well on the way to realising this vision - providing he can get the keys to the new building that is! What's your vision for the new Watford Palace Theatre? Lawrence: Having closed the theatre two years ago, the important thing is that whatever we re-open with - and as - we'll need to recognise that we are both a new building and a new company. What we want to try and do is create a sense of excitement for the audience, so that they can really begin to celebrate both the town of Watford and the creative work that we present. Much of the work that we're going to do will be new so as a result, I hope that it will also be exciting and connect with audiences. We shall be commissioning plays from local writers as well as writers with a national reputation and I also want to be able to re-invigorate old classics.
So the play that we're opening with is a new version of William Wycherley's Restoration play, The Country Wife. How will you 're-invigorate' this play? Lawrence: It has a new spin on it because it's written by Asian writer Tanika Gupta, and the play is going to be very much put into an Asian context in an attempt to try and tell the story for a contemporary audience rather than looking at it as a dusty piece of work. The important thing for us is that we're not a museum but a living, breathing organisation with a strong heartbeat. So by taking an old work and giving it a modern spin, you're opening with something that signifies what you're going to be trying to do in the future?  | | Still a building site but you get the general idea! |
Lawrence: Yes - it's also important to us that there is the opportunity of working with a writer because so much of the impetus of what we want to do will be new and commissioned from living writers. The main drivers for the work that we want to do are new work, work that is appropriate and exciting for young people and work that also shows the nature of cultural diversity. Watford is a diverse region and we want to find work that can reflect that. Obviously when you re-open all your loyal fans will be delighted and come back, but is this a way to attract new audiences into the theatre? Lawrence: Yes - this is a start to embrace everybody. It's our aspiration and desire to say that this theatre belongs at the centre of Hertfordshire. People should want to come and nobody should feel excluded. Within a season, you should be able to find something that you want to see. What about the difficulties that Watford has by being so close to London? Is it hard to attract people who can get to the West End easily? Lawrence: It's a difficult one. But although the theatre obviously has a regional identity within Hertfordshire and the Eastern region, and a local identity in Watford, it also has a fantastic national identity. This is based on the fact that the people we get to work in Watford have national reputations and those are the things that are attractive to audiences. So, is it a restriction being geographically sited where we are? Possibly. But are there other opportunities that are created from our geography? Definitely yes - because we can attract top actors to come and work with us and great designers and great directors. If we didn't have that proximity to London, that wouldn't be the same.  | | A refurbished piece of architecture |
And audiences will always go to see work that they want to go to, so it's all about making the work appropriate and exciting for that audience. If they want to witness it then they will. And also, it's much easier nipping down the road to here that getting into the West End! Lawrence: There is that too! Watford has an excess of parking, you don't have a congestion charge and you don't have the tubes and trains and the unreliability of all that! As a producing theatre I also notice that you're doing Mother Courage which you're taking around secondary schools and other venues in the area. Is that another way of getting young people in? Lawrence: One of the great advancements that we've had during our period of closure is that we've had the opportunity to work a lot more in schools and in small scale arts centres across the country. So they want pieces of work from us and that's going to continue. These pieces are geared specifically at young people but they also have a general audience as well. So you will be able to see the work of the Watford Palace Theatre in different parts of the county. And it's really important to recognise that it's not completely Watford centric. Are you also looking to attract touring companies? At the moment our priority is doing our own work and we also have a commitment to doing our own educational work with our youth theatre and accommodating local amateur socities. Once you've begun plotting those through the year, plus adding in your own ten pieces of work there aren't actaully many windows for anything else. But we're having strong future commitments with a number of leading touring companies, particularly those who also work with new writing, and that's going to be very evident in the spring season. Did you have particular criteria for choosing the plays for this season, other than getting new plays and giving old ones new twists? Lawrence: I think that the most important thing is to try and hit as many other elements as possible - i.e. not JUST being new, for young people and incorporating cultural diversity. Those were the most immediate things for us, but it's also about trying to find things that are fun, celebratory, exciting, accessible and in the case of Wycherley, humorous. And it's also important that they are big impact pieces of work which is why the season is branded 'Back with a Bang'. How many productions do you plan to put on in a season?  | | Comfy new seats! |
Lawrence: Within each year we'll do ten plays and we will tour two of them in the small scale as well. So, essentially the pattern is that plays will usually run for three or four weeks. Some of those pieces of work will then go on to tour. The next brochure is coming out October which will cover the period up until July. So this current brochure is just advance warning of what we're doing. We haven't got possession of the building yet! So up until the beginning of September, it's all about getting in there and making it work as a building where we can put on plays. And you don't have any concerns about whether or not that's going to happen? Lawrence: I have enormous concerns about MAKING it happen! [laughs] But I think we're now far enough along in this process for there to be an inevitability about it - thank goodness - but we have to make it work! At the moment the building site is still that of the contractors - we haven't got the keys yet! So what we might find when we're in there - I don't know! But the early indications are that all is well! What do you think about the new building? What's the most exciting thing about it? Lawrence: There are several things. People who went to the theatre two years ago would recognise that doing nothing could never have been an option because the building would have closed. So, we had to go through this process - however painful, disruptive, distracting and frustrating - as well as exciting - it has been. But now as you wander round, you can see 600 seats, the carpeted areas, the new offices and the new technology going in and the new foyer and bar areas. I can actually see it crammed with people rather than crammed with brick dust and bits of old scaffolding - which is very exciting for me. I believe that the capabilities - certainly of the stagehouse - are infinitely greater that they were. Whether the public areas work as well as I hope - I'm not going to know until we get the people in there. But I hope they will like the aesthetic choices we've made, like the colour choices, the seats and the finishes. Is there a chance that they might not?  | | The new foyer area looking towards the bar |
Lawrence: Inevitably there maybe some controversy about some of the colour choices, the installation pieces and the dynamics of the spaces but there are LOTS of toilets! That was a big priority for us in terms of comfort. People were nervous initially that we were going to change the intimacy or the look of the auditorium and I hope that people will be quickly reassured that we haven't done that. What we have done is re-enlivened the interior. There are new bits of architecture in the auditorium but I think the majority of the audience wouldn't notice this. It all sounds quite nerve-wracking! You're putting on a play in October and you can't get into the building yet? Lawrence: Yes - it has its little tensions - as you would imagine! More about the new season >> | 
