At the Exeter Northcott On Stage

Exeter's Northcott - a once great theatre...

It was an exciting place to be, and it got more and more so

as the years went by.

With a troubled past...

We live in a very commercial world now and I

think very few theatres can actually exist without commercial help.

Now, can one man turn the theatre's fortunes around?

That doesn't work...

which is why we have no phones.

There's absolutely no landlhne in here whatever.

I don't know why I'm laughing.

It's ridiculous.

Or is time running out for the Northcott?

We've got some issues with the mainline theatre audience,

which is not as good as I would like it to be.

So the History Boys coming tp for up for half.

That's going to be on at thd end of May and I'd like that to be rather

better than that, and we didn't do that well with The Business

of Murder and that's a pretty sort of mainline commercial offer,

so you'd expect that to do better.

And we're going to not hit our target with the Out of Joint show,

with Crouch, Touch, Pause, Dngage.

In fact, we're going to miss it by quite a lot, I think.

Opera always sells well in this University Citx.

But other visiting productions prompt frequent, anxious visits

to the front of house...

Can you get the report up on that?

Show me what that one's likd.

All the coloured ones need to bd sold.

Crouch, Touch, Pause, Engagd - a challenging drama

about a gay rugby player, is failing to score at the box office.

I think it's a bad title, I think that's part of the problem.

Apparently it sold very well when they started in Wales.

Whilst we need to be commercially effective in what we progralme, some

of the time, a lot of the thme. .

It's important to have an idea of the sort of companies whose work

we want in here and I have puite a strong idea of that and I think

that should be an objective.

Paul's had 25 years in the theatre, directing productions all over

the UK, including in the West End and at the National.

My parents took me to theatre when I was little and I was hooked,

I was absolutely hooked.

I loved it and I wanted to do it, so I just decided that I wotld.

But in all his time in theatre he's not faced anything

quite like Northcott's backstage area - known as the "D".

So our telephone system, it's been, erm, extensively cleaned up.

That doesn't work, which is why we have no phones.

There's absolutely no landlhne in here whatever.

I don't know why I'm laughing.

It's ridiculous.

So what I've done is I've told my staff to go out and get pay

as you go.

This one does work, that ond there.

You see those green lights?

That's very good news, because that's the box office line.

If that was down then we really would bd...

seriously in trouble.

Here we are in the "D", in amongst a stack of mess.

Ice-cream...

more ice-cream...

The ice-cream's there because there's not enough room out

front, and also the ice-cre`m's there because it's been left there

for a while, and the ice-crdam needs to go somewhere else.

Believe it or not, this are` has been cleared up quite a lot

since we took over, but there's still quite a lot more to go.

We've got various bits of tdch kit.

The theatre used to have storage on campus, which it lost, and ht also

used to have storage in the city.

So everything's been shoved down into here and piled up,

and we desperately need to sort it out, and we will.

It's a pain.

ACTORS SING With ticket salds and the building both in nedd

of improvement, change is ndeded at a theatre that's become `s

well-known for the dramas offstage, as for those that happen on it. .

The theatre has had more th`n its fair share of argument and problem.

It's had...

It's gone through some very choppy times which have involved

Arts Council money being withdrawn, disagreement between Arts Council

and the University, falling out between

the directorate and the trustees.

So there's a really bad pattern that we are determined to avoid

When it opened on the Exeter University Campus in 196 ,

the Northcott was a wonder of the theatrical world.

Its stark, modern design was revolutionary

The Northcott Theatre here hn Exeter is an exciting achievement.

An expensive achievement - ?200,000 to be precise.

It's new in being, new in ddsign, new in concept.

But what's even more import`nt is it will provide the south-west with its

only permanent professional theatre.

But within a year of opening the Theatre was already in trouble,

the first of many battles to secure Arts Council Funding.

The Northcott Theatre is supported mainly by the Arts Council, and some

other local authority bodies, and the Arts Council isn't living up

to its end of the support.

Consequently, because the Arts Council isn't giving anything

like the money we had a right to expect, and indeed were asstred we

might have, we are in difficulties.

The Northcott survived, and went on to become one of the country s

leading producing repertory theatres - launching the careers of people

like Imelda Staunton, Bob Hoskins, Robert Lindsay, and Jon Nettles

You were with a company of `ctors.

We weren't starry in any sense.

We weren't there to serve a star performance, as sometimes you

are at the RSC and the National

You were here to work together as a team to produce the best

quality of performance you could.

It was that air of camaraderie, of dependence on one another,

which created a true companx.

It was an exciting place to be, and it got more and more so

as the years went by.

When I went to Exeter, they were very heady days because it had just

opened, it was new, and I rdmember being incredibly honoured that I had

just auditioned for this thdatre and been asked to be - I think H was

there for something like thd third production - and I was asked to be

part of this theatre companx, which was electric in those days.

You were part of a new comp`ny which was just forming

and doing wonderful work, Shakespeare, Chekhov, you know.

We'd go out touring round schools and community halls with

The Bastard King, which we did about the Monmouth Rebellion.

It was all very, very excithng.

By the millennium, theatre audiences everywhere were f`lling.

In 2008, the Arts Council once again withdrew funding,

famously telling the Northcott it was attracting "the wrong sort of

audience - too old and too posh .

That didn't go down well.

CHANTING: "SAVE THE NORTHCOTT!"

I'm getting messages of support from all over the acting professhon.

I've just had an email from Sir Ian McKellan expressing solidarhty,

"Sir, having helped refurbish the Northcott recently, the Arts Council

now seem perverse in threatdning to withdraw the grant for its work "

It's coming in from all over the place.

I was absolutely flabbergasted, but I very soon found that ht was,

you know, part of a national picture `s well.

It was the time when, a week or so later, there was an incredibly angry

meeting at the Young Vic - from the whole theatre establishment - with a

number of organisations getting cuts for seemingly inexplicable reasons.

Two years later, mired in financial problems, the

Northcott went into administration.

It had to be rescued by the University.

Ok, that's good.

If you can strip that to nettral, please?

Dominic Jeffery came to the Northcott as a student hn 2 03,

one of a handful of staff to endure the rollercoaster ride of the

Theatre's fortunes over the years.

The theatre itself, as a building I think, has had some

tricky times, but people within it are quite resilient.

It's inevitable, as with anx arts organisation, you know,

you have peaks and troughs with it.

Sometimes what you are prodtcing, what you are putting on,

is very successful, people want to see it, other times it is things

that maybe don't sell so well.

So when you have a season or two of things that don't sell

so well or some unexpected bills that come through, inevitably you

get on a little bit of a landslide.

Successive touring companies have left their mark on the theatre,

but so have years of uncert`inty and financial constraint.

You join us on the Fly Floor.

This is the part of the equhpment that is responsible for flyhng all

the lighting and scenic equhpment that we use for all the productions.

This piece of equipment really hasn't had an awful of investment

since the building opened in 19 7.

For instance, if you look down through, there's cradlds that

hold these big heavy 10kg wdights.

They're fairly bulky items, and its not unusual for one of these to

have maybe 70 weights in a cradle.

That gives you an idea of the weight of some of the pheces of

scenery that we put up in the air.

But there should be a catch-all cage underneath, so that

if someone was to drop one of these weights it doesn't come all the way

down and hit to the stage, `nd at the moment that cage is lissing.

If we look at the floor where we are, there is a kick strip,

which you can see is loose, and it should be running a lot higher up.

There are things like the lines that need re-tightening,

in some cases its hemp lines that need replacing, and there's a lot

of slack in the system.

So that's one area that a decent amount of investment would

make a big of difference to the health and safety of thd things

and the users in this buildhng.

To get more money for its btilding, the Theatre needs to make friends

with its landlord - Exeter University.

Arguments about the Northcott's role and recriminations over fin`nces

have strained the relationship.

At times, they weren't speaking at all.

Just a few days into his new job, Paul sets out to win over ddcision

makers on campus.

Well, Paul's one of those larger than life characters.

He makes things happen.

He keeps knocking on the door until you let him in.

And so he's been successful in understanding how the unhversity

works, who the key decision makers are, and making sure that hd pesters

them to a least have an audhence.

It's quite a complicated organisation.

It's not a straightforward regional theatre in a high street run

by a local city council.

The building is owned by the university, the business

of the theatre is a registered charity, so it's quite a colplicated

package of relationships.

Paul's determined the Northcott should return to production,

devising and creating its own projects, rather th`n just

receiving shows that are on tour.

He wants his first in-house production on stage by Christmas,

and he's brought in former ballet dancer turned director Amanda Knott

to make it happen.

The Scrooge that he is.

We all need to know where there s a bit of stillness.

Otherwise we don't know who he is before the show starts.

Mid scale theatre has an important role to play in this broad dconomy.

Now, we all want to keep Sh`kespeare alive,

this classical tradition alhve.

It informs everything else that we make and we do, and these places

have a very important part to play in developing and nurturing that

skill set, so they must continue.

But as summer arrives, the Theatre faces another challenge.

Ambitious plans for a new chty centre venue have been annotnced -

it's a few years and more than 0 million pounds away, but thd local

campaign, led by a former Northcott employee, is gathering momentum

There's a sort of magic number in theatre of an auditorium of 00.

Over 500 attracts slightly bigger shows.

The Northcott, being 464, struggles to make enough box office

return to attract some of the bigger touring shows.

So this theatre, we're lookhng at probably a 900 to 1,000-seater.

We're hoping it would pitch somewhere between the Northcott

and Plymouth Theatre Royal.

Exeter probably wouldn't be able to support a theatre of 1,200 to 1 500

seats, that would compete whth the Theatre Royal for shows and for

audiences, but at the moment there's quite a lot of touring prodtct

available that would fill a theatre of about 1,000 se`ts.

I would say the best chance of building

a city centre theatre is for this theatre to be an enormous stccess.

That would be the first thing, in the course of the next few xears.

The next thing is that if you want to build a city centre theatre,

there needs to be a real rationale - a reason for having it - `s I

hope we are starting to arthculate a clear reason for this the`tre

So you'll need to articulatd a very clear reason for the theatre

you wish to build, otherwisd you are not going to get anywhere.

And I also think it should be a theatre that produces stuff.

The business of theatre now gets as many column inches

as the productions.

Across the country, theatres are struggling, and need to

do everything they can to strvive.

One of those challenges in the case of the Northcott is

simply about its situation.

It's on the campus of the university,

it's not in the middle of the town.

People have to make a decision to go to that thdatre,

therefore it's probably verx important for that theatre to reach

out to people, and not expect them to make the journey up the hill just

as a matter of course.

I think they really need to look at community work, participatory work.

I think in the future, we whll probably judge a theatre not just

on what it is that goes on on its stages, but all the other activity

that its doing - a bit like an iceberg, where what goes on on its

stages is perhaps the tip of that iceberg but what makes that

theatre valuable and import`nt and loved and cherished by `

community is all that activhty that is going on beneath the watdr line.

I think for theatre to survhve, it has to reach out to absolutely

everybody, and be inclusive of everybody.

There is something about thdatre, verbal language, where you can go

and see something, be so catght up in it, it goes into your gut.

I will pass the clap to you and you pass it on to someone else.

Right - go!

Paul has already begun that process of reaching out.

He's gone to a school in Dawlish to work with the next generation

of actors and theatre-goers.

Oh for goodness sake, that was a terrible start!

Right, ready?

Concentrate, begin!

The Northcott is re-engaging with education at the same time `s

returning to producing, so H am here because I think that the artistic

director of the theatre shotld be.

I'm making a direct connection with our young

audience, whilst my colleagte Amanda is directing the Christmas show

So I went, "You

do the Christmas show, I'll do the education work.'

That's it, concentrate...

Move!

Back at the Northcott, Amanda has cast Derek Frood

as the lead in A Christmas Carol.

He's still got the beard he grew for his role as Captain Brax in

BBC TV's Poldark.

It'll need a trim for the transformation to Scrooge.

That has to have the narrator played by Scrooge.

I felt that until the time when you go into your house, up until that

time, you could be the narr`tor as well as being Scrooge, so it s

a kind of double edged sword.

But Scrooge as the narrator?

Yeah, Scrooge the narrator, but the narrator is Scrooge.

It's kind of, as I say, double-edged...

It's been a long time since there were creative discussions

like this at the Northcott.

As the first in-house production in many years, there's

a lot riding on its success.

It is a hub of culture really, and it's the one place that you can

get a broad spectrum of audience to, from your opera and

ballet loving audiences, to your children's theatre, and encouraging

schools into places like thhs.

I think for a lot of childrdn, especially in rural counties

like Devon, this is the one opportunity that thdy'll get

to see theatre, live theatrd.

Backstage, the big clearout is underwax.

The first visible sign that things there are starting to changd.

More than a ton of out-dated and broken equipment

from a building where the space is worth more than the scrap v`lue

But the clearout uncovers some treasures too.

What's that - a sewing-machhne?

I'm just working out why we have a sewing machine here.

Presumably that was from wardrobe?

It's a little piece of antipuity that our wardrobe mistress would

like to think about how it hs used.

I think it's rather nice.

I think we should keep it, if we can.

So we are clearer.

We still have the ice cream in the "D", but we'll work

on where to put that.

It's much better, yeah.

Publicity for A Christmas C`rol has begun earlier than usual.

Paul hopes it'll boost the takings - the first real financial test

of his time in charge.

As the theatre prepares to take a short summer break for decoration

and refurbishment, there's a sense that things are changing...

but the proof will be in thd Autumn financial report.

Freshers week at Exeter University.

New faces, new energy, and new optimism on campus.

Good afternoon, Exeter Northcott.

The theatre reopens with a new box office, and it sedms to be

doing good business.

Well, there's odd ones dottdd about.

Can I just take your first name or initial?

It will then go to Expose, and could indeed become the basis

of a press release.

With a landline that now works, Paul is composing

an important press release.

He's got some great news, btt someone else has stolen his thunder.

We were going to do a press release to announce the fact that this

investment in the theatre, that was going to happen, but of course what

has happened is that the sttdent newspaper, Expose, have got hold of

it, and they are scooping it - which is rather admirable rdally.

So we must put something out, to make sure there's a quotd.

The University has agreed to spend more than a million pounds on the

building for improvements, hncluding new audio-visual equipment.

In return, the Northcott becomes a university

lecture theatre two days a week

I'm sure he won't get his way with all the things that he

wants, because the university's mission is necessarily the same

as the theatre's mission - but there are lots of crossovers

so creating a vibrant campus is clearly very important for ts.

So can the theatre contribute to that?

Yes.

Has it been?

Yes, and of course that vibrancy is really starting to take off now

We are seeing more students coming here, and that changes

the audience dynamic.

Ten years ago, the average `ge of the audience would have been

much higher than the averagd age now, which of course makes theatre

much more vibrant anyway.

University funding secured, Paul's next challenge is to

understand Amanda's novel sdt design for a Christmas Carol.

These two very tall chairs stay there the whole time,

and they are the office - Scrooge and Cratchett's offhce.

When we are in the Scrooge and Marley office,

this is flown in like that...

and out again, and then this can open...

like that.

This is the double bed.

Why are you flying it around?

It's a little larger than it will be - I got over excited.

Larger than that?

No!

It comes from off stage.

Yes, it comes on and it will come through the back here.

And it will come down the centre like that.

And he's going to be able to trampoline on the bed as well?

Yeah.

It makes sense for a theatre built on

a university campus to do more for young people, as cast and atdience.

Lots of touring productions are harnessing the energy and ideas of

young actors, in the same w`y that the Northcott used to in thd 19 0's.

Now, the Theatre wants its own youth company.

Like many of Paul's ideas, ht's a creative and financial galble

If you said there's a hospital that's struggling for funds,

and a theatre that's struggling for funds, you would say well obviously

a hospital should maybe havd first call, but of course there is so much

now that if you make people feel good, their health will be better,

their lives will be enriched.

You know, you can't just put everything down to a work b`sis

and making people better medically.

There's a lot to say for giving people an experience where they are

going to something, and thex will feel enriched when they comd out.

SINGING And as part of its future, the Northcott is reaching b`ck

into the past.

John Nettles returns to the theatre to launch

its new graduate drama school.

What Paul wants to do is to bring back an in-house company

of young actors fresh out of drama school, and give them a couple of

plays to do, which myself and Paul will direct over a period of maybe

8-12 weeks, something like that

With good scripts, to have them all here and doing

their damndest and their best.

And we hope that will be a massive success,

because what it will do is give those young actors an opportunity of

the same kind that myself and Suchet and Lindsay had all those ydars ago,

and this cannot but be good.

The idea goes down well with Northcott regulars, who are already

sensing that things are changing.

I'm really delighted to hear that they're going to offer some

students, graduates, some work in theatre locallx.

We've had a pretty difficult time financially, but now

people are coming out of th`t.

So people should be encouraged because this is our only thdatre,

so we need to expand.

I don't want see the mega productions here, H want to

see local talent, rep theatre.

I mean that would be fantastic.

What they are able to put on here is often unusual, and it's

broadened my horizons for theatre so it's very exciting having it here.

But all that's for next year - more pressing now are the Attumn

financial figures.

The first real test of Paul's first six months in charge.

How will they compare with the same period last year?

This is last year?

Yeah, 29th...

So 158?

And that's this year.

So we went on sale a month darlier.

And we've go another ?100,000?

That's absolutely fantastic.

Brilliant.

That's made my day.

Fantastic.

It shows that we've sold about 40% more this year

at this point than we did l`st year, which means that the markethng

department is working well.

Our ticket sales are improvhng, which is obviously very good news.

So, ticket sales are up, the Arts Council is happy and has

guaranteed three years fundhng how does Paul now rate his success?

The thing I'm most pleased `bout is the fact that we are rettrning

to producing our own work.

I am very pleased about that.

I'm very pleased that we've managed to organise that transition back to

having our own shows in the theatre, and we're taking

our audience with us.

So I'm very pleased that advance sales of A Christmas Carol `re

very strong - significantly better than our Christmas show last year.

That's a big plus.

I also think we have got a much improved relationship with

the university.

In fact I think it's a transformed relationship, and it's a proper

partnership now where we can and do negotiate and disagree about stuff.

But is one promising production enough to secure the the Northcott's

future?

However well you do, you're never going to know the shows

that are going to sell best.

It can never only be a mattdr of which certain shows sell best

because the best show may not sell best, so you can never sit back

doing this kind of job.

Paul doesn't look like he'll be sitting back any time soon.

He's got a theatre company to recruit, and another five in-house

productions in the pipeline.

And he's hoping that, in future the only dramas at the Northcott

will be onstage.