Stratford East New Season

^ Seen it? He’s playing the piano in Equus! Isn’t that right, tonyloco ?

This one? 

^ That will just Double the pleasure, double the fun...

(Is that still in the script? I know it was originally but did they update it for our Daniel?)

In case anybody has not picked up the reference, my current avatar shows me sitting at the piano at the side of the stage of the theatre Royal, Stratford East, playing for one of the regular Sunday Night Variety Shows in the 1980s with Kate Williams on the stage hosting the show and Christine Pilgrim and Yvonne d'Alpra in the stalls playing theatre cleaners discussing the events of the day.

As I was only an observer and never involved with the management of the theatre I'm not really the one to pick up this discussion about the future of the place or talk about what has been wrong with its recent past, but I can't help quoting from what the new director Nadia Fall has said about the history of the venue:

"I’m trying to channel Joan Littlewood, because what she did was eclectic and for her popular was political. Her programming in the heyday of this theatre was classical work — Shaw, Shakespeare, the Greeks — done in new and inventive ways, which is what I want to do."

Not really. Nadia has said that she doesn't care for musicals. She has closed down the theatre's existing programme to develop new local musicals and she has not scheduled a musical in her first season. But the fact is that the public did not flock to Stratford East to see Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop productions of Shaw, Shakespeare, the Greeks or even Brecht in the 1950s. What they flocked to see were bawdy musicals like "The Hostage", "Fings Ain't Wot They Used t'Be' and "Oh What a Lovely War", all of which transferred to the West End for long, successful and financially profitable runs.

If the new director wants to emulate Joan Littlewoods's commercial success she can forget about Shakespeare, Shaw and the Greeks and look for a few more bawdy musicals!

Good luck with that! Let's hope that the new director can make Stratford East the new 'go-to' cultural venue of choice for London theatregoers with her programme of classics done in new and inventive ways as well as serious modern drama because she is unlikely to attract the local audience, which is what I thought the Arts Council was anxious to protect with the emergency grant.

For us the appeal of Stratford East is that it is so close that we can hear the end of the Archers and still be in our seats for a 7.30 pm start. But there has been very little on in recent years to make me want to make even that limited effort - we are much more likely to be going in to the Picturehouse opposite for a live relay of a play. Looking at the new season there are a few things that might encourage me back. Shame about the lack of musicals though - the things we have enjoyed there are things like Glasgow Girls and The Infidel. There is a local audience for theatre - we're certainly not the only people on the train home to any of the Stratford stations (Stratford, Maryland or Stratford High Street) clutching programmes - but I suspect that they haven't been going to the Stratford East much.

I wonder what is happening with the archives. I've been on a couple of tours of them hosted by Murray Melvin. Perhaps they are going to be housed elsewhere.

I agree I have been there over the past few years and I'm not sure the programme is going to appeal to people that Nadia Fall is hoping to attract.  Also in my opinion Stratford (and in particular where the Theatre is located) isn't the nicest part of London late at night and its a long way from where I live, so I'm afraid productions will need to be good to get me there.  

Well, I live in Stratford so this announcement has got me very excited, my attendance has been sparse in recent years but this is the sort of programming to win me back.

It’s not just plays I find musicals really struggle in the venue as well.

I hate the space. No intimacy.

I would move this thread through to General Section

tonyloco Oh that is a shame. Like the ravens leaving the tower. But at least the archives have been preserved. It's been good to see Wilton's Music Hall use of Heritage Lottery funding for their archives by providing so much of it online (https://www.wiltons.org.uk/heritage/archive and artsandculture.google.com/partner/wilton-s-music-hall) and it would be nice to see something similar for the TRSE.

The research I did on Burton was done after my PhD on behalf of a professor at Leeds University. She, the sadly late Katrina Honeyman, published a book based on it - Well Suited: A History of the Leeds clothing industry 1850-1990.

Love a bit of Finian's Rainbow. I suspect that I am not the only person of my age (mid 50s) who came to love Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg thanks to Sunday afternoon Benny Green radio programmes.

Yes, I too was a great fan but didn't always agree with his opinions. I nearly always agreed with his opinions of songs but he was quite limited as to which performers he liked. Still, he did introduce me to singers I'd never heard of at the time like Michael Feinstein that I have since grown to love.

I’ve lived in east London for about 20 years and this would be my local theatre... and not once have I ever seen any publicity about it anywhere. In fact, I know more about what’s going on at the Hackney Empire than here. There is potentially a huge audience of locals who could be using this theatre but don’t. I often go by especially as I use the Picturehouse next door every couple of months, but there just seems to be very poor publicity for anything going on.

I know that they are aiming for West End audiences, but the point I didn’t make very well was that there are thousands of people for whom this is their local theatre, yet it won’t be on their radar at all. I think that’s rather short-sighted, especially as Stratford is so well connected.

I do wonder if you asked someone to name an east London theatre if anyone could name anywhere other the Hackney Empire. I do check their website every so often to see what’s on, but if locals don’t really know about it, there is a whole market they’re missing out on. It’s such a shame really.

The claim the “hipsters” who have moved into the area are “transient” is absurd - once money moves into an area and gentrification starts it stays there for a couple of generations or more. More typically it is the minority’communities in an area who are transient.

His advice they aim for a “local” audience is as bogus as the Bush’s similar aim - it’s only one section of the local audience they want.

Also it would have been advisable for him to omit the Thatcher-bashing - makes him sound ancient.