London

Feet are getting itchy, eyebrows getting twitchy: the reopening of the Royal Festival Hall is just four months away. Miraculously – in the wake of Wembley – it all appears to be on schedule. Artistic director Jude Kelly is confident enough to have unveiled the opening programme, and revealed the new spaces lurking inside the old eggbox. She’s made no secret of her admiration for the spirit, ambition, and bright colours of 1951’s Festival of Britain, the raison d’etre for the hall’s existence.

The Festival Of Britain was ‘making real a landscape for the imagination’ she says. ‘When the Festival Hall reopens we want it to embody the hopes and dreams of the people who created the site. They spoke bravely about the future – it’s up to us to do the same. The Festival of Britain deliberately referred to a story of Britain that included a past and a future. It played a double role. We have the same complexity now. We have to honour the architecture of 1951 while making it suitable for the twenty-first century.’
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Since the Hall closed for renovation almost two years ago, most of the work has been hidden behind boards and scaffolding. Now we can see that it will have doors on all sides, rather than the single entrance on the west side, ‘so you can approach it from many directions. It works as a metaphor for welcoming all.’ Inside, the sunken bar has been levelled to stop punters falling over each other like drunken penguins, and the ballroom – provider of much free entertainment for those without tickets for the main theatre – has been soundproofed so that events can go on in both spaces simultaneously.

‘The ballroom is a place for strangers to meet,’ reckons Kelly, ‘and on the sixth floor are balconies and foyers which haven’t been seen for years.’

Lick of paint: final preparations for June's glorious reopening

In hard hats and wellies we make our way up the familiar staircase. There is also a bar on the sixth floor which taxed my aged and useless memory. It has a breathtaking view across the river – I had no recollection of it ever having been there. ‘That’s because it used to be Portakabins,’ explains Kelly.

Further down are rooms that are earmarked for learning and participation, known as the Spirit Level. Kelly considers this space to be the ‘centre of the site. Human curiosity should be valued for its own sake, because of where it leads. This space suggests we are all there to learn from each other. It’s for professional and amateur artists alike to test new ideas, to break down barriers.’

Saint Etienne will be mixing the professional and the amateur on June 29 when we premiere our film about the site and its history, ‘This Is Tomorrow’. Arranger Robert Kirby, who has worked with some of our heaviest heroes – Sandy Denny, Nick Drake, John Cale, The Magic Numbers – will be scoring and conducting a live soundtrack. The schools of Lewisham, Lambeth and Southwark will be providing the orchestra – we’ll be lurking together outside school gates, jumping on anyone carrying a violin case – and The Lilian Baylis Theatre is lending us its choir. I’m breaking out in a cold sweat thinking of all the notation and broken pencils ahead of us.

In the meantime, we have our monthly Turntable Café. March’s event, in the Purcell Room, was a Noson Llawen – that’s a merry, social gathering to non-Welsh speakers. Richard James from Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci played, and we screened clips from ‘Disc A Dawn’, the Welsh-language equivalent of ‘Top Of The Pops’ (complete with studio dancers and Top Ten countdowns) – Glam band Touch had to be seen to be believed. Keeping up the nationalistic side, we have curated a Paris In The Spring evening for April 4th. Sit on a plage deckchair and enjoy the sounds of electro girl group Pravda, fresh from French tours with Ladytron and The Long Blondes, making their London debut. As for the movie aspect, we’re so spoiled for choice we haven’t made our minds up yet.

For more information on events at the South Bank Centre, visit www.rfh.org.uk