Newcastle's Theatre Royal

Yesterday, I was up in Geordieland to see various technical innovations introduced in recent refurbishments of Tyneside's premier touring theatre.

On this outside view, you can see a builders compond down the side of the building. This is for the renovation and expansion of various front of house and ancillary spaces, as well as an education space.


When we got inside, we were treated to the delightful new mural of an actor taking a bow in Grey Street. This is fixed directly onto the safety curtain which was originally relatively plain.

After being told about the project, the safety curtain was flown out to reveal the stage as the audience never see it- the dream factory laid bare.

From the stage, the auditorium can be seen in all of its Matcham glory. I can remember it being described as like performing inside a wedding cake by Jimmy Edwards in Big Bad Mouse with Eric Sykes back in 1970, the first Pro show I went to see by myself. (Aisle seat, row C, front stalls).

From the back of the stage, the auditorium looks rather small in scale to the height and width.

The stage right area is new- extended into an old Barclays Bank with some forthcoming access into some vaults below for flight cases and such. When I worked the 75/76 Panto (and indeed up until a month or so ago), the wall finished to the left of the thick column next to the large white electrical box, narrower even than the auditorium on that side of the stage.

Standing centre stage and looking up, the fly floor can be seen, along with three gallery levels.

The grid, sixty feet above stage level.

In the upstage right corner is a dumb waiter lift, intended for raising chain hoists (or anything else) to grid level, safe working load 450kG.

After flights and flights of stairs, we eventually arrived at the grid. This is very unusual as it is the first one in Britain made of Plastic, or more accurately Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP), a Fibreglass (but stronger) based structural composite widely used in industry.



The Grid covers the acting area but not the wings, due to the sloping roof construction. There is a large smoke lantern over the grid, the glass painted out (but needing a repaint!)

The large yellow fixtures are movable spot loading points. All of the vertical ladders and handrails are made of GRP which is workable somewhat like timber. This view is of the counterweight and header pulleys. Note that the last four sets have an extra pulley to allow for ladder clearance.

After climbing down three sets of vertical ladders, we arrived on the flyfloor. This is a brand new flying system on the normal counterweight principle, although it is possible to link up some motorised units for powered flying. The blue weights are used to balance the bar without loading and are at the top of the cradle rather than the bottom due to height constraints in the fly tower. (It is a grade 1 listed building and much of the original timber & steel beams have been preserved)

This is the Flyman's view from the fly floor, raked the same as the stage.

This is a double-purchase system, where the rope and cradle move only half the distance of the stage bar. (It has to be this way to give the stage dock clearance stage right but is more difficult to operate for the flyman).

This is an architects model for the construction work on display in the circle lobby. The stage haystack lantern can be clearly seen at roof level.

More about the new work in another posting.

A right Royal show...

This is a snapshot of a rather splendid (local artist) print of the Theatre Royal in Grey Street, Newcastle, that my parents bought me as a Christmas present in the 80s. It is of great sentimental value to me as it is one of my favourite buildings, another "Matchless Matcham" Masterpiece. It hangs in the lounge and has been in all of my houses in pride of place. Let me tell you why it has such special memories to me.

I took a break from my rock & roll venue crew lifestyle in late December 1975 to have a go in live Theatre. It wasn't a great loss to Rock & Roll- we had a resident Circus (starring Planet of the Apes, no less!) at the City Hall. (I found a poster on ebay- not from Newcastle but the same show!)


I was well known at Newcastle Royal to Ernie Savage (the chief LX) and Andy Kent (the Deputy), having called there intermittently since I had been 14 to scrounge gel (colour filter) and get tantalising tours backstage. I bumped into them in town one day just after school had broken up and they offered me a casual job as a showman, OP (Opposite Prompt, i.e. Stage Right) Electrician for the Panto. The show was Robinson Crusoe and the headline act was Mike & Bernie Winters (& Schnorbitz, of course).

The show itself was a really easy one to work, with only half a dozen cues. In act one, I was handed a plug from Ernie straight after a pyro flash had gone off, had to coil the cable up, step out onto the stage and hand it to the PS (prompt side- i.e. stage left) electrician behind the ship set. I always got a kick out of this- I could see all of the audience in the auditorium (on four levels) but they couldn't see me as they had been momentarily dazzled by the flash going off.

For the second half, an old wing mounted spotlight (a Strand Electric Pageant) was focussed for cross lighting then later on it was re-focussed (& re-coloured) onto some treasure for the pre-Finalé scene. I remember nearly coming a cropper one show by moving the light a bit too early before the stagehands had cleared one of the 18' flats (side wing scenery pieces) when we got in each other's way. There wasn't much room stage right and I was just being overly keen.

Being on the payroll was a transformation- previously I had been a nuisance to the doorman, now I was waved in and got to sign the staff book. We were technically meant to be in the building by "the half" (which is 35 minutes before showtime) but in practise they could cope as I was subject to the vagrancy of the buses.

By theatrical illusions were shattered on the second day, however, when Ernie spied me in the half, gave me a plunger and asked me to go up to the Male Chorus Dressing room!

I was paid £1.97 for a Matinée and £2.02 for an evening performance- 5p for "anti-social hours. After about a week working the shows, the Number 3 came up to me about ten minutes into a show and asked "Can you work a Lime?". It turned out that one of the follow-sput operators had a death in the family and was on a compassionate leave.

My trip up to the stage left (audience right) gallery slips was a bit of a let down. Instead of a Patt 765 CSI as used in the City Hall, there was a rather old Patt. 93N complete with bakelite tumbler switch and a piece of card for dimming. I was told that I had to be aware of two things- I couldn't cover downstage left and the other lime couldn't cover downstage right so we needed to swap beams if the turns went right down there (e.g. to the stairs to rescue children for the singalongs). Other than that, there was only one scene where the limes needed to be tight- a ballet scene in front of a gauze where it was important to keep the beam off the gause to not spoil the transformation scene. We also needed to keep the limes off for the UV puppet scene, of course.

The benefirt of working front of house is that you get to see the show and working a big chunk of a season you get to see all the funny bits where the actors muck up and corpse. Before too long, I had to go back to school again (and the proper lime boy came back). However, I managed to do every Wednesday afternoon Matinée for the rest of the run as I had a free period (even if I had to sneak out of school and run for the bus!)

I was invited to a cracking end of run party at the Theatre and also an unofficial joint one with the cast & crew of the Sunderland Empire Panto (which was unfortunately a bit of a flop, even though Mike Winters turned up to support it).

Ernie suggested a casual job for me as relief board operator for Andy (working their hi-tech new MMS located in the Royal Box) but I had to supposedly knuckle down to my A levels, although I kept on working City Hall shows. Had I gone to Newcastle Poly as planned, that would probably have come to fruition, but that is another story.

P.S. David was hoping to meet Schnorbitz but he ended up meeting with Schnorbaby instead.