Is all our company here?
Peter Quince, Midsummer Night’s Dream Act I Scene ii
Set up after a fifty year campaign, London’s Theatre Museum holds one of the world’s finest collections of material on the performing arts. It is administered as a department of the Victoria and Albert Museum, which for reasons of economy wanted to close it as an independent attraction and to relocate it to a few of its own galleries.
London’s Theatre Museum - Something Worth Saving
The Guardians Team
Some Facts
Guardians of the THEATRE MUSEUM
Protecting our theatre heritage
WHAT THE V&A DON’T TELL YOU
The Theatre Museum has more visitors per display metre than the V&A,
and proportionately more visitors to its website. It is a performance centre
as well as a fully functioning museum.
The Theatre Museum has a smaller grant in aid per square metre than the V&A.
Its exhibitions budget is £70,000 a year, less than half the salary of
the Director of Arts Council England. Its acquisitions budget is a four-figure
sum.
The rent of Russell Street is £150,000 a year. The lease to DCMS runs
until 2028, but could be renegotiated. The site can be used only for museum
purposes. The site lease’s new owners, Capital and Counties, are in favour
of the Theatre Museum continuing.
The annual overhead cost of Russell Street is around £1.2 million, including £0.4
million for staff and the same for exhibits and educational activity. Blythe
House appears to have a similar cost allocated for its Theatre Museum component.
To build and equip a similar space to Russell Street (3,000 m2) in the V&A
or anywhere else would cost many millions. No capital or running cost figures
have been offered by the V&A for their proposed new initiatives, but the
consultation paper of April 2006 implies investment of several millions, and
more rather than less expenditure on less effective displays outside Theatreland.
It will be a minimum of two years, more likely five, before the exhibits now on display at Russell Street can be shown again at the V&A. Access to the theatre part of the Blythe House collections is even now very limited. There will be no Theatre Museum open for visitors to the 2012 Olympics.
Both Liverpool and Blackpool have expressed interest in housing the Russell Street collections until space can be found for them in London.
WHAT THE V&A DO TELL YOU
‘The Theatre Museum possesses the largest collections in the world relating to the UK’s performing arts. One of their strengths is that these are constantly updated with new material related to both contemporary and historical performance. Once items are transferred to our ownership, we are committed to preserving them in perpetuity and in accordance with the highest standards of curatorship.’
Mark Jones, V&A director, is on record as saying that the V&A would be willing for the Theatre Museum to be run by another body.
DCMS/GLA
David Lammy has written to Don Foster MP in negative terms that could have been dictated by the V&A. In the same week, he gave the DCMS’s half share of the Museum of London to the GLA.
Ken Livingstone has written to Stuart Bennett in support of the Theatre Museum: ‘I would like to see the Theatre Museum remain open on its current site and believe that through working in partnership with other organisations and cultural institutions its programme and collections can be expanded and enhanced for the future.’
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