CityLife

Latest act in the life of the Theatre Royal

MANCHESTER’S historic Theatre Royal will be restored under £10m plans to re-home the city’s Library Theatre Company.

The 19th century building – the city’s oldest theatre – will be reinstated as a 600-seat venue to accommodate the acclaimed company if town hall plans are approved. It will almost double the theatre group’s 312 audience capacity at its current Central Library base.

The 56-year-old theatre group, which says it has outgrown its current venue, will move out next summer to make way for a multi-million pound redevelopment of St Peter’s Square and the town hall.

A council report recommending the Grade II listed Theatre Royal, on Peter Street, as its new home is expected to be approved by town hall bosses next week.

Deteriorating facilities

The building, which will be bought from private owners, was chosen from a shortlist including The Boddingtons brewery site on Trinity Way, St Peter’s Church in Ancoats and the Mackie Mayor meat market building in the Northern Quarter.

The new site would allow the Library Theatre to overcome problems with deteriorating facilities at their current site.

The company would relocate in 2012, spending two years as a touring theatre while the Theatre Royal is restored.

An agreement has been reached with bosses at the Lowry theatre for the company to stage three productions there – 85 performances – each year, including a Christmas slot, during that time.

'Marvellous opportunity'

There are also plans to stage a Dickens adaptation in a Victorian warehouse at the Museum of Science and Industry, a walkabout production in the Northern Quarter and ‘Manchester Lines’, involving the audience travelling on the city’s transport system.

Chris Honer, the Library Theatre’s artistic director said: “The Central Library has been a wonderful venue for us for over half a century but the prospect of a move to the Theatre Royal offers the Library Theatre Company a marvellous opportunity for the future. What a great story it would be to be able to turn the Theatre Royal back into a theatre.”

Coun Mike Amesbury, Manchester’s member for culture and leisure, added: “The benefits of this proposed relocation are manifold and will have a significant, positive effect on the cultural life of the city.”

The theatre, currently Coliseum nightclub, has also been a bingo hall. Built in 1845,it was converted into a nightclub in the 1990s and was best known as Discotheque Royale.