Village Squire, 1976-03, Page 4Holly Holmes and Don Fenton were illicit lovers in Love and Marriage until her husband found out and took the fun out of it.
Brown bagging
it in one
of London's
poshest
shopping
centres
Lunch time theatre
doing well among
the chique shops
of City Centre
2, VILLAGE SQUIRE/MARCH 1976
City Centre, the fashionable new downtown
development in the heart of London, hardly
looks like the kind of place where you would
take your lunch to work, or with you when you
go shopping. Yet every week more and more
people are doing just that.
Indeed City Centre management is
encouraging brownbagging it, for hidden
among the expensive exclusive shops is an
unusual space, a new theatre. Centre Stage is
the latest attempt to establish a second
professional theatre company in London. It's
received the blessings of the City Centre
people who've provided the space for the
theatre rent free in order to make the Centre
more of an attraction.
Nola Willis, who with Ken Livingstone and
Kem Murch founded the new theatre, says
the Centre people can see the theatre
bringing more people into the complex,
meaning more business for the shops. The
new theatre also benefits nearby businesses
like the Holiday Inn because it means there is
something to do for those who are staying at
the hotel.
Not only City Centre people, but the whole
London business community has been giving
the new venture big support, Nola says.
Early response to the idea of lunchtime
theatre, a new concept for London and area,
was very positive Audiences were large and
enthusiastic for the 45 minute performances
that cost 99 cents. Office workers from nearby
buildings and people downtown for the day
for shopping make up the audience.
In the short time the experiment has been
going on already there are some delightful
stories: like the man who paid his 99c for the
show and dropped off some extra money as
well to help support the show, but refused to
give his name; or like the older gentleman
who wandered in one afternoon about three
o'clock and prepared to pay for a ticket. When
informed that the show was performed only at
noon each day, he said he thought it was
performed every hour. "Listen dearie," he
said, "You'll never make any money that
way."
He's right of course. Theatres just don't
make money these days and so the future of
the Centre Stage is still in doubt. The group
has enough funding to keep going until May 1
but beyond that, things get murky. The
company is hoping, Nola says, to convince
grant -giving agencies by then that the work of
the group is important enough to deserve
support. On the less optimistic side, however,
government agencies are becoming more and
more stingy in view of austerity measures in
the government. And it requires a good deal
of money to keep a program such as Centre
Stage has going.
The noon hour theatre will present eight
weeks of plays on a Monday through Saturday