TOP TEAM
A MODERN CANTERBURY TALE
Taking less than fi ve years from design to completion, the £26m Marlowe Theatre is testament to the council's drive to create an enriched cultural future for Canterbury and the surrounding Kent region. Three key players in the development talk to Julie Cramer about their roles in the project
A
mid a sea of quaint rooftops, and bordering Canterbury Cathedral's UNESCO World Heritage site, there's now a
gleaming new spire rising from the his- toric Kent city. At a pinnacle of 70ft (21m), the fl y tower which tops the new Marlowe Theatre forms a striking beacon in a traditional landscape. The real vision for Canterbury was actually sparked 10 years earlier, when Canterbury City Council entered a bid to become the 2008 European Capital of Culture. That bid was unsuccessful, but the seeds were sown to keep the momentum going, and create a more enriched cultural future for Canterbury. The old Marlowe theatre was already a well established regional arts facility, which presented around 380 per- formances and sold around 270,000 tickets annually. However as a 1930s cinema-turned-theatre conversion in the 1980s, the venue was inadequate to house new theatre audiences and attract the kind of large scale produc- tions that could be seen in London’s West End. The building was said to be crumbling and not fi t-for-purpose, and the council decided it would be better to in a new building, rather than spend millions to patch up the old one. So rising like a phoenix on the site of the old Marlowe, the new facility is now a striking example of modern theatre architecture, situated at the end of an historic Canterbury lane, bordering the River Stour where the traditional tourist punts pass lazily by. It has been funded via a public/pri- vate partnership, with Canterbury City Council investing the bulk of £17.5m, with support from Kent County Council and SEEDA. Alongside this, there was
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It is estimated the venue will contribute £22.6m pa to the local economy and 300 jobso
a fundraising campaign by The New Marlowe Theatre Development Trust, which was backed by numerous trusts, foundations, local businesses and indi- viduals, raising another £4.5m. London-based fi rm Keith Williams
Architects started work on the project in March 2007. Planning permission was granted in August 2008, and con- struction of the 4,850sq m (52,204sq ft) site began in May 2009. The exterior of the building has a series of majestic 8m-high colonnades in white Dolomite stone which frame and shelter a multi-level glazed foyer. The new fl ytower is 9m taller than its predecessor, and matches the height of the knave of Canterbury Cathedral that sits clearly in its line of vision. Inside there are airy public spaces, bars on three levels, a riverside res- taurant, a 1,200 seat auditorium and a smaller, more intimate 150-300 seat
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performance space designed to attract new, experimental talent to the venue. The piece de resistance is, of course, the main auditorium. Seating has been increased from 950 to 1,200, meaning that the venue can now attract larger-scale productions. The new season, launched at the
theatre’s opening on 4 October, includes a British premiere of a new production by performance company Cirque Eloize, a new musical version of Top Hat, and a series of orchestral concerts by the Philharmonia. The new Marlowe is now part of a new cultural triumvirate for Kent – which has seen the establishment of the Folkestone Creative Foundation to bring arts regeneration to the econom- ically-challenged East Kent coast, and more recently the Turner Contemporary which opened in Margate in May 2011 with a similar cultural mission. ●
ISSUE 1 2012 © cybertrek 2011
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