Unicorn Theatre for children
The Unicorn theatre is to open soon.
Michael Morpurgo writes about the good work in children’s theatre here.
From December 1, England will have “its first purpose-built professional children’s theatre” [Ed: See Hana's comment - quote is from Guardian. Egg in Bath was built first.]
The Unicorn Theatre is moving to a new space in Tooley Street in Southwark. It began life modestly as a travelling theatre, its founder Caryl Jenner touring the country in an old civil defence van. It started in 1947 and the journey to Tooley Street has been a long time in the making. But here it is: a 300-seat theatre, a small studio theatre, proper rehearsal space, and a potential annual audience of 100,000 a year. It’s taken £13m and a lot of faith and determination to get this far. [Ed: See hana comments again]
Keith Williams were the architects. Not for once, the great Haworth Tompkins of Royal Court and Young Vic fame [and Egg in Bath]. KW has had theatre experience as I believe KW had a hand in the Birmingham Rep theatre, Orange Tree in Richmond, as well as the Kebehavns Philharmonic Hall in Denmark and other projects.
Now we have a “national” [Ed: see Hana] children’s theatre and a National theatre of Scotland (although without a building); do the arguments becoming more compelling for a “black” theatre? See previous posts and current consultation by the Arts Council.
Aside from the politics, it’s great to see a children’s theatre. Tony Graham, the artistic director, is launching the new theatre with In the Box for younger children and, for older folk, Tom’s Midnight Garden, by Philippa Pearce.
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One Response to “Unicorn Theatre for children”
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About me
I'm a playwright and investment analyst. I have a broad range of interests: food, gardening, innovation & intellectual property, sustainability, architecture & design, writing and the arts. I sit on the board of Talawa Theatre Company and advise a CIS investment trust on socially responsible investments.
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Recent Work
Recent plays include, for theatre: Nakamitsu, Yellow Gentlemen, Lost in Peru, Lemon Love. For radio: Places in Between (R4), Patent Breaking Life Saving (WS).
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Nakamitsu
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Yellow Gentlemen
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Hate to rain on the party, but Haworth Tompkins Egg theatre in Bath is actually the first purpose-built children’s theatre to open in the country (as blogged by me here) – as my Boy was the project architect, I should know! The Unicorn is also not the ‘national’ children’s theatre – another question being of course, should ‘black’ theatre have a ‘national’ theatre either?
and, not to be too partisan, £13m is a lot for this building (which is architecturally, dare I say, rather dull…) – the Egg cost £2.5m and the new Young Vic (3 performance spaces, etc etc) will come in at around £9m.