James Haddrell on celebrating Greenwich Theatre’s 50th year of modern era

Last weekend at Greenwich Theatre we held a gala evening, a special line-up of talks and performances celebrating 50 years of the theatre’s modern era – though thanks to the pandemic the event took place in our 53rd year.

Nevertheless, the event that we promised three years ago finally happened.

It opened with an introduction from Celia Moreton-Prichard, a local supporter who had been part of the fundraising campaign in the 1960s that successfully bought the theatre and saved it from demolition, instead rebuilding it in (roughly) the form that audiences see today.

As well as supporting the venue for more than 50 years herself, Moreton-Prichard’s husband Stephen spent much of the 1970s and 1980s as the theatre’s photographer, capturing images of everyone from Rupert Everett to Mia Farrow on our South London stage.

It was a shame that he didn’t have his camera at a first visit to the newly reopened venue when, according to Celia, Laurence Olivier was spotted in the bar.

The opening talk was followed by a sneak preview of music from our forthcoming family summer show, a riotous version of Treasure Island with music by David Haller, performed by Haller along with other members of the cast in a break from rehearsal.

Then a young singer/songwriter duo, Russan and Royd (Georgia Russan and Emily Holroyd) performed a selection of songs from their new musical review show.

Having made their respective professional debuts in Greenwich Theatre’s pandemic radio series The Story Of The Yara (available for free on the theatre’s website) the duo offered a testament to the support given to new artists in the pandemic.

Russan and Royd were followed by a music theatre company that has been associated with Greenwich Theatre for more than a decade.

Filament Theatre, producers of a unique fusion of physical theatre and a cappella multi-part harmony singing, presented an excerpt of Earth Makes No Sound, the astonishing piece about environmental sustainability that was last seen in London at the Southbank Centre.

The evening wound up with a preview of the new musical Are You As Nervous As I Am?, which is set to receive its world premiere at Greenwich Theatre in October.

I talked a lot on the night about the way in which we as a company reflect on the many challenges that we’ve come through in our 53 year history.

From the initial campaign to buy a building that could otherwise have been demolished, to an 18 month closure in the late 1990s, to the loss of funding around the Olympics, to the periods of closure due to Covid, it is common across the arts and heritage sectors to talk about survival and it would be easy for us to do the same, as if those threats to our future were some kind of illness that we were lucky enough to come through.

However, we don’t use the word survived – we use the word saved.

Thanks to our audiences, our supporters, our donors, our artists and our partners, not to mention a small team of dedicated staff, we have repeatedly been saved – because people value what we do.

So that is what we celebrated last weekend – 50 years of being valued, of being wanted and needed – and because of that, we can now look forward to entertaining, enlightening, surprising and delighting audiences for another 50.

 

Main Picture: Emma Thornett from Are You As Nervous As I Am Pictures: Lidia Crisafulli