Theatre News

Summer Restoration Works 2007

This important £500,000 project is one of the most exciting things to happen to the building for many years, probably since 1964, which was the last time the auditorium was decorated. Firstly, you will have seen, in all the information that has been put out by the theatre in the last 18 months, that we have been planning to "restore the auditorium ceiling". I am delighted to be able to tell you that thanks to the success of the programme of shows, the efforts of all the staff and volunteers, and the success of the fundraising campaign, we will be able to restore much more of the auditorium than just the ceiling. Indeed, about three quarters of the auditorium will be restored, making a huge difference to this most wonderful of theatres.

So this is what we are doing:

• Until the theatre shutdowns after the evening performance of "Thoroughly Modern Millie" on Saturday 16 June, final preparations and plans are being made. This includes the removal of some redundant pipes, conduits and fittings, which would otherwise be in the way of the restoration, and look out of place once it is restored.
• On Sunday 17, Monday 18 and Tuesday 19 June, the auditorium will be cleared of equipment, the seats will all be covered, drapes taken down and the houselights removed.
• On Wednesday 20 June, Palmers Ltd will be arriving to build a large "birdcage" scaffolding in the auditorium, which will reach all the way up to the main ceiling, giving proper access to all the balcony fronts and sides of the auditorium as well. This work is expected to take approximately 10 days.
• On Thursday 5 July, it is hoped that this scaffolding will be installed and certified safe, and the main works can commence.
• Firstly, the theatre's housekeeper, Mrs Angie Proudlock and her team will be giving the ornamental plasterwork a dry clean to remove forty years of accumulated dust from all the ledges, etc. Angie tells me she has been looking forward to this for a long time!!
• Hayles and Howe Ltd will be starting to repair the plasterwork itself. Hayles and Howe are a specialist ornamental plasterwork firm from Bristol, and they have been working with the theatre since 2001 looking after this area. Mr David Harrison and his team of specialists will be repairing the plaster where needed, strengthening and securing the various statues and other ornaments, and generally ensuring that all the ornamental plasterwork will stay in place safely for another 100 years. We are very grateful to the JSF Pollitzer Charitable Trust for a grant of £1000 towards this work.
• Another team from Hayles and Howe will be cleaning and polishing the "Scagliola" on the Proscenium Arch. For those who haven't heard of this before, "Scagliola" is a special form of plasterwork that looks similar to marble, but without all the expense!! It is used in the Kings Theatre in two main areas, firstly on the pillars that support the box fronts and secondly as the surround to the Proscenium Arch (that frames the stage opening), and is a reddy brown colour as we look at it today. The first four feet up each arch side is a much darker colour than the rest, and tests in the last week have shown that these two areas have suffered badly over the last 100 years from damage, probably by generations of techies!! It looks as though this damage has been repaired with ordinary plaster, not scagliola and then painted dark brown. This summer, these badly damaged lower areas will not be fully restored, mainly because of the time required, and will only be tidied up and perhaps repainted. However, Hayles and Howe will be cleaning and polishing the rest of the proscenium arch scagliola, but not the box pillar scagliola, which will also have to wait for another occasion. If you would like to see what the scagliola looks like when restored, a small panel has been cleaned and polished on the pillar nearest the stage under the dress circle box on the left side of the auditorium.
• Winton Fine Arts will be restoring and cleaning the 8 oil paintings in the auditorium, 6 on the ceiling, and 2 on the sides of the Upper Circle. Ms Jo-Anne Surridge and her team are from Alverstoke, and it is lovely to have a local firm working on the project. When the paintings were first installed in 1907, they were given a dark coat of glaze, to make them look "antique". Jo-Anne will be cleaning and repairing the paintings, and they will be more visible, but the dark coat of glaze will remain, so they won't change that much. We are very grateful to the D'Oyle Carte Charitable Trust for a £3000 grant and the Kessler Foundation for a £1000 grant towards this restoration work.
• Fagan Electrical Ltd will be improving and installing the technical infrastructure in the auditorium to allow stage lighting and stage sound to be rigged efficiently and aesthetically in the future. Mr Nick Ewins and his team of technicians will be lacing the theatre with hundreds of metres of trunking and cabling, virtually all of which will be hidden from view. The most noticeable change in the auditorium will be the removal of the ugly lighting boxes on the Upper Circle Balcony Front. They will be replaced with simple unobtrusive lighting bars.
• Part of the work to remove the lighting boxes also involves Hayles and Howe, who have already made three sections of plasterwork for the balcony front to replace where the ugly old boxes currently are. These new panels have been cast from the existing balcony front, so will match beautifully, and put the balcony front back to how it looked in 1907. As these panels are new, the centre one will be engraved with "1907 to 2007" in order to mark the Centenary in a most fitting way. These new panels are in storage at the theatre under the stage, waiting to be fitted.

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