Theatre

Exit, Stag Left

Alan Hindle | Saturday 12 February, 2011 15:16

Above the Stag Theatre, situated, reasonably enough, above The Stag pub just off Victoria Station has been given a brief reprieve. Plans for the redevelopment of Bressenden Place apparently don’t include the pub, and artistic director Peter Bull was given notice to leave three weeks ago, effectively ending the season. Can’t do much theatre on a work site, where your only audience is going to be sweaty, buff construction workers in filthy jeans and no T shirts jiggling with jackhammers or sashaying about in slow motion carrying their enormous tool kits.

The stay of execution allows ATS to mount their production of My Beautiful Laundrette in March, and a new musical by Taggart writer Glenn Chandler called Cleveland Street. Then the rainbow beflagged company will have to find a new home. In all honesty, this might be a good thing. Bull did the best he could, but it is a difficult space. A narrow lane of a stage, a catwalk really, looks more suitable for small fashion show or an even smaller bowling alley. Hopefully they’ll find somewhere new soon. It won’t be easy, if a likely prerequisite is that it needs to be above a gay/lesbian bar. However, there are several homosexuals in the theatre industry and with barely a smidge of luck somebody is bound to put forward a cool venue that only needs an playhouse upstairs to be the perfect place to pop in, grab a date and have a ready-made night out.

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