B A R B I C A N L I F E


Kevin Kiernan


Afterthoughts T


he Autumn season at the Barbican– grey clouds reflecting onto concrete, affording a deeper, darker, more magisterial grey - offers two


special highlights for me: performances at the Guidlhall School’s new building and, of course, Crossrail’s public meeting in September giving us an update on the Burrowers. The brand new Guildhall building,


the new Milton Court, rests on the site of its namesake. Reflecting how one generation passes on its names to the next, perhaps more observed by Royalty than, say, the Beckhams. I miss the old Milton Court building, housing, as it did, a Fire station and a Mortuary – always an uncomfortable bit of town planning that. I also miss the Fire station’s annual Open Day. (The Mortuary did not join in.) Conscious of the limited attraction that a small station could offer, other than how to put out a burning chip pan, or the best way to slide down a pole without raising eyebrows, the Firefighters put on some amateur dramatics. Inevitably their shows had to feature plays where the actors were almost exclusively men. Their adaptation of the musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers into Six Brothers was cleverly done although spoilt by one firefighter on sick leave and, more generally, by lacking a dramatic balance, as the FT noted. However it’s nice to see that their dramatic baton has been passed on to the new building. It’s a slight shame that the GSMD’s first production – Chekov’s The Three Sisters hasn’t made way for more up-to-date ‘The Three Cherry Sisters’ a neat mélange of two of his most famous plays. In this modern hi-speed world it makes sense and saves readers time to combine the best bits of two great works into one. Dickens’s ‘Our Bleak Friend’ is an obvious example. I imagine the heating/airconditioning


/acoustics/price of ice cream will be future topics for comment and complaint, but it would be churlish not to wish the new Milton Court well. (I am just glad I didn’t live in Speed during the birth pangs.) Building a tunnel, on the other hand,


is a difficult PR experience as there is considerable disruption, but no visible sign of progress. (Rather like my attempts at DIY or our Government’s reforms to


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the NHS). We can witness the Shard rising, as well as the Cheese Grater, but progress with a tunnel is more difficult to assess, unless they inadvertently bore through a water main or come across some Saxon remains which the Museum of London’s Time team will want to inspect. Even the company name is wrong.


Crossrail is an unfortunate brand since ‘rail’ also means ‘to complain bitterly. And of course ‘cross’ can mean angry etc. So whenever I see the word ‘Crossrail’ I think ‘vehement complaint’. In much the way when some wag pointed out that the BBC radio foreign affairs programme ‘Crossing Contintents’ could be misinterpreted as ‘Cross Incontinents’ a programme with less appeal, one would guess, but of more immediate concern to some. Perhaps aware that ‘Crossrail’ was a possible hostage to PR fortune they have named two of their tunnel boring machines ‘Ada’ and ‘Phyllis’ and their most recent one ‘Jessica’ after our gold medal heptathlete. Not sure that this is a case of ‘when you are in a hole stop digging’ – but that is probably not very helpful advice in any event. About 10 years ago, at a ‘getting to


know you’ Residents’ meeting I felt that the Crossrail team seemed slightly complacent about the problems that digging a tunnel under 3 x 44 storey tower blocks might bring. They spoke of the Barbican experiencing ‘slight cracking’ at the very worst. But any aficionado of disaster movies will know that slight cracking in Act 1 means total wipeout by Act 3. Bruce Willis or no Bruce Willis. Indeed shortly after that meeting


where we were assured that there was no risk, a rail tunnel at Gerrard’s Cross collapsed on to the line due to building work overhead. The problem, apparently, was exacerbated by ‘heavy rain fall’ – an event that obviously could not have been predicted in Buckinghamshire or in the Barbican for that matter. While we sat there pondering our fate


at that meeting, the Crossrail team announced that they needed a major large hole to be dug at the Barbican Tube crossroads with all the disruption that would create. The Crossrail team seemed particularly good at misreading the mood of the meeting, rather like a rich maiden


Kevin Kiernan drifts from Milton Court to Crossrail and the hopefully unlikely potential of the Barbican sinking into a tunnelling-generated abyss perhaps prevented by the resurrection of barrage balloons.


aunt announcing to her assembled relatives that she was giving her entire fortune to a Cats’ Home and expecting a round of applause. Luckily they were persuaded to reconsider and relocate the hole elsewhere – was that the BA’s proudest moment? It could, of course, have been a clever negotiating trick by Crossrail where you pick the worst solution possible and then any other solution would seem ideal by comparison. Of course since that meeting the


Estate has been shedding the odd lump or two of concrete without any encouragement from Ada and Phyllis down below. Should we take precautions to stop further damage? One solution might be to resurrect


those barrage balloons that dotted London’s skies during the Second World War. The steel cables would tether them to the ground having the effect of decreasing the downward pressure on Cross Rail’s roof. Relatively easy to assemble – we could even get London’s artists to paint them. Hopefully Tracey Emin will give this one a miss. Indeed Damien Hirst’s ‘Barrage Balloon in formaldehyde’ would somehow miss the point. Individually we could also help by shedding those winter pounds and refrain from games which create downward thrust such as pogo sticks - but we could hula hoop as much as we like. Perhaps the elite trainers at ‘Young at Heart’ could take note. If the Barbican does sink it will give


the Arts Centre a unique cultural opportunity to put on work suited to its new underground position. Orpheus in the underworld springs to mind as does Wagner’s squad of Nibelungs in the Ring. But before we press the panic button


just yet, we should note that there are other parts of London which will already have the tunnel underneath them. Admittedly the Barbican’s concrete poses special challenges, but any dips earlier up the line in Oxford St will give us pause for thought. If for example you walk from the street into John Lewis and find you are already on the fifth floor it might be time to have a word in Phyllis’s ear.


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