Sense of occasion
Alan Powers
As I walked past the Hackney Empire a As
of weeks ago on my way to look at the restored theatre, I saw an old lady standing by one of the terracotta columns at the entrance patting it firmly but affectionately, as if to be certain it was still there. There is something about theatres that inspires romantic affection. Many types of building do not seem primarily intended for use by people. Theatres have to act first as an advertisement on the street, by means of their exterior architecture, Their auditoriums come alive when the audience take their seats, for until then the carving and gilt are apt to look cheap and thin. Before the curtain rises, the decoration should create anticipation, like a prologue without words. It must speak with emotion rather than grammatical correctness. Once the house lights dim, the theatre architecture must retreat in shadow, ready to sustain the mood of excitement as soon as the stage is cleared and the lights go up again without letting everyone down.
The theatre architect needs a sense of occasion, and in this none has matched Frank Matcham (1854-1920), the designer of the Hackney Empire and the London Coliseum, and about 70 other theatres. He also knew better than any how to pack in seats without spoiling the sightlines, and how to fit a theatre on to an awkward site in a town centre. His theatres were built at great speed, but where they have survived the years of bingo or closure they have long been recognised as treasures. The reopening of the Buxton Opera House for opera in 1979, followed by the Grand Opera House, Belfast, the following year, helped to propel Matcham's name into consciousness.
The Hackney Empire was listed in the great Matcham revival of the late 1970s, which made Mecca decide to get rid of it rather than meet the conservation stan dards demanded of them. Designed in 1900 as the headquarters of the Stoll Moss chain of 'Empires', the Hackney Empire was a typical Variety theatre, serving a local population, In 1986, Roland Muldoon, a veteran of politically committed theatre, bought the aging beauty and recreated Variety with stand-up comics, talent shows, Turkish and African nights, pantomime and clowns.
Just over ten years later, the arrival of the National Lottery seemed to offer the answer to leaking roofs and, with help from Griff Rhys Jones as champion for the project, an exceptionally long saga of effort has concluded with a theatre now finished and open again, with an additional new building on a corner site to follow shortly.
Tim Ronalds, described by Rhys Jones as 'Optimistic Architect to the Performing Trades', has done both parts of the project, and as a novice in handling historic buildings has applied his experience in new the atre design (The Landmark, Ilfracombe, is one the most exciting small new theatres in Britain) and acquired a great respect for Matcham's design skills in the process. The restoration has been pragmatic rather than pedantic, and the theatre already looks lived-in after only a couple of nights.
The new design work could have come across as too precious for Hackney, but there was equally a danger of creating a patronising pastiche of Matcham. Ronalds seems to have avoided both. He is a gutsy architect for whom the dreaded phrase 'frankly modern' does not conjure up grey surfaces and too much glass. The stage curtain, a new creation by an avant-garde textile artist, Petra Blaisse, with a simple geometric pattern created by giant smock ing in tones of red, is a good example of the sympathetic reinterpretation of the Edwardian past.
The use of lettering also deserves a round of applause, both for the evocative hand-painted signage inside the theatre and the bold cut-out condensed sanserif that will literally stand out on the flank of the new Marie Lloyd building on the site of the old corner pub. Just before the Hackney Empire was about to be built, Stoll and Moss acquired the site of the Coliseum in St Martin's Lane, and made it their headquarters instead. Matcham was their architect once more, and practised the same tricks of curvaceous balustrades and fat columns that make him at times a cartoonist of classical architecture.
In a simultaneous restoration, designed by the Arts Team of RHWL Architects, the Coliseum is re-emerging with some of the same remedial treatment as the Hackney Empire, including better foyers and bars, full disabled access and a general clean-up. The auditorium has been lightened by reproducing the original paint scheme, and more has been done to copy early decoration and textiles.
The overall effect is appropriately like a slightly downmarket version of the Covent Garden restoration, and will give similar pleasure to new generations of opera-goers, as well as to passers-by who can admire the terracotta reclaimed from beneath layers of grey paint and a new revolving light-up globe. Inside, the new elements seemed visually unadventurous, however, compared with Hackney, for the least complimentary way of treating Matcham is to surround him with 'good taste'.
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