I went to Leeds Grand Theatre twice yesterday. Early afternoon, I visited to see an interesting exhibition celebrating 130 years of the Theatre It had been organised in collaboration with the West Yorkshire Archive Service.
17th – 22nd November – The Grand Theatre and Opera House Leeds Exhibition
Grand Theatre and Opera House, Leeds
Open 10am to 4pm and an hour before performances
The Grand Theatre will be hosting an exhibition featuring the collections of WYAS. This exhibition will be interactive and feature oral history recordings, costumes, plans and documents amongst the vast array on display.
(Unfortunately, the advance publicity in the Theatre Brochure didn’t mention the hour before performances bit, otherwise I could have saved myself one of the two trips!)
On approaching the Grand Theatre, I was delighted to see all of the scaffolding gone and the exterior pretty much complete. The exhibit was in the Grand Hall, a large lofty rectangular space above the foyer of which the five arched windows admit light to it.
Inside, I was first struck as to how much the room had been transformed. I knew it was going to become the lobby area for the newly reconstructed Assembly Room with a bar built under the balcony staircase but I wasn’t expecting black mahogany lined with mirrors and satin pink bands on near white wallpaper above, nor the two enormous crystal chandeliers. The light fittings may well be original to the room but it was very much Indian restaurant before, red flock wallpaper, red velvet drapes, red patterned carpet. Now, it is stunningly light and bright, a surprising contrast to the tiled & marbled sombre stairwells that lead to it.
The exibition itself wasn’t overly extensive and I was a little disappointed on my first quick walk round. On reading the display panels, however, I became much more engrossed. Here was the original Director’s register from the 1860s before the building was even built. An inventory of all the building assets showed arcane records such as four wire gas globe guards in a room under the stage and there were photos of the Queen gracing the Royal Box. (I was much more interested in the Front of House stage lighting enclosure above which appeared to contain Strand Pageants or possibly Furse Frencas). If you donned a pair of white gloves, it was possible to examine a selection of very old programmes as well as the archives of the Leeds Amateur Operatic Society. There were also photos and plans, including the proposals from the 60s to demolish the place and replace it with a huge mixed development (which fortunately never happened!)
An unexpected historical object was the 1980s lighting desk, a Strand Gemini (I noticed it had a White Light asset tag on it, perhaps it was on loan). It was powered up but the monitor was off and as there weren’t any lights connected to it I resisted the temptation to do a few cross-fades.
On my way back out again, I wandered to the old Assembly Room/Plaza Cinema entrance. The new area was modern and stark but some tiling from the original staircase had been preserved. I suspect this might become the new Stage Door entrance as this is now underneath the stage end of the Assembly Room, the interior having been reversed.
One very welcome improvement is the removal of the Carbuncle from the roofline. Contrast this view with my exterior photo from January last year!
We returned that evening to see LAOS’ production of Oliver! It was really good and there was little to fault. I felt they overlit some scenes and used way too much smoke, but that is just my opinion, being a bit of a Prince of Darkness when it comes to atmospheric stage lighting.
LAOS join MOAS on our must see list, we are looking forward to The Producers in May.
(Update- it is the Grand hall, not the Royal hall, text corrected. In fact, it is called the Emerald Grand Hall, presumably a sponsor as the main house is called the Yorkshire Bank Auditorium).
