Kenneth Hurren on the Criterion and the backstairs deal
My colleague, Will Waspe, an amusing scrivener but, alas, one notoriously fallible, got the business of the Criterion Theatre all wrong last week in his zeal to counterbalance the pieties lavished upon us by those who speak so passionately of preserving in toto the repellent urban vulgarity known as Piccadilly Circus.
"There are assurances that closure during rebuilding would be not longer than six months or so," wrote Waspe of the plan to imbed the theatre in a complex of offices and arcades, "and the Crown Estates Commissioners — owners of the freehold — are pledged to renew, in any new lease, the covenant guaranteeing the future of the house as a 'legitimate' theatre."
However he feels generally about 'saving' old theatres, the naivete underlying this rubbish, stemming perhaps from believing what he reads in the papers, is touching but dangerous. I fear it is rather widespread and a few paragraphs of enlightenment seem to be obligatory.
That little matter of a proposed closure of six months, for first instance, is based upon the estimate of McAlpines, the builders, a firm, I need hardly remind anyone, that obtained the contract to build the National Theatre largely on the basis of an undertaking to finish the job in less than four years — back in 1969. It may well be that McAl, pines have plausible explanations and valid excuses for their failure to complete as arranged; the fact remains, though, that airy undertakings of that kind cannot properly be taken seriously. It is also relevant to remark that, even if all the work actually impinging upon the theatre itself were to be done within a six-month period, it would hardly be possible to run a working theatre in the middle of a building site. Anyone who imagines that the Criterion Theatre management would have any luck in representations to either the contractors or the Council, calling for a hold-up in the building operations to allow for, say, matinees and daytime rehearsals, is almost too innocent of the ways of the world to be at large in it.
This is to take no account of the disaster, in human and commercial
terms, for the theatre management and its employees, in the event of closure. There is a full-time and part-time staff of forty-one at the Criterion, accounting for a salary bill of £1,200 a week. Paying that, unless these people were to be callously and summarily paid-off (and many of them have been there for twenty years or more), would quickly do away with the relatively small profit that the lessees, Wyndham Theatres Ltd, take from the Criterion. The average annual profit there is about £22,000 (including a catering profit of £5,000), a figure that is more or less petty cash to Sir Charles Forte, whose Trust Houses Forte Ltd is the firm the theatre is up against. Last month Westminster City Council granted THF conditional outline planning permission to go ahead with its rebuilding scheme on the Criterion site. The thing is due to be wrapped up at a GLC meeting on November 26, and in the light of how the matter has been handled so far it is hard to be other than cynically pessimistic about the outcome.
The scheme, by the way, involves the demolition of the whole of the Frank Verity building over the theatre, although the frontage of the adjoining Thomas Verity building is to be preserved. Oddly enough, the preservation of both buildings was regarded as desirable by Westminster City Council in every one of the plans outlined in its 'green paper' of December 1972. Earlier that year, Mr Hugh Cubitt (now leader of the Council, but at that time its town planning chairman) had been quoted as saying that the best that could be hoped for as far as the Criterion was concerned was that a larger, modern theatre would replace the old: it was "definitely not feasible to
build around the existing theatre." The 1972 'options' were conflicting, but all, apparently, have now been abandoned.
There is, I suspect, considerable substance to the rumours of deals being done on the backstairs between the Council and Trust Houses Forte. That is in addition to the convenient little arrangement previously agreed between the GLC and Westminster whereby the latter was assured of a free hand in Piccadilly Circus in return for a similar assurance that there would be no tiresome Westminster objections to anything the GLC got up to in the Covent Garden area. What has since happened, it is generally believed, is that THF, in the development of the south side of the Circus, will make the Council a gift of several feet of road and /or pavement space around the Haymarket corner in exchange for the facility to run a 'Golden Arcade' through the middle of the block, plus an additional 11,000 square feet of office space — all involving a loss of 6,000 square feet of the theatre's present area.
It will seem to some that there is something strangely wrong about the approval of schemes involving the demolition of listed historic buildings. What is the point of 'listing' them if they are for the chop, anyway? What, indeed? It may be wrong, but it happens. You may be startled to learn that some 360 'listed' buildings were destroyed last year alone. The Verity buildings are listed in Grade II of buildings of 'architectural and historic interest'. It is arguable (though the argument seems not to weigh with Westminster City Council) that they should not be even partially destroyed for office development, however much such development may enrich Sir Charles Forte and his associates.
As to the contention that the Crown Estates Commissioners will see to it that, whatever else happens, the Criterion will only be used for 'legitimate' drama, the commissioners can be, at best, well-meaning about that. For one thing, the present lessees are unlikely to be there. THF have declined pointblank to enter into any legally binding agreement with Wyndham Theatres Ltd, and have indicated further that they will be looking for an annual rent in excess of £30,000, which is three times the present figure. A reputable and respected management would thus be 'priced out' and the likeliest alternative would be a management operating in the highly profitable 'nudes and sex' field. Impresarios like Mr Paul Raymond certainly have their place in the entertainment spectrum of the capital. I should like to hope that their place is not at the Criterion, but if the Crown Estates Commissioners feel able to write a lease that would define 'drama' or 'legitimate theatre' in such a way as to exclude, say, Let's Get Laid or Pyjama Tops, I doubt whether their censorial confidence would be shared by Parliament or its result upheld in the Law Courts.
My educational fervour has, I'm afraid, eaten up the week's reviewing space, but, as it happens, there is only one West End newcomer to remark upon — William Fairchild's
The Pay-Off, at the Comedy, a work involving Nigel Patrick, Dulcie Gray, Peter Sallis, murder and blackmail. It has a plot of astounding complexity and hardly a
moment's plausibility.
Kenneth Hurren is Associate Editor of The Spectator.
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