Theatre

Work under way

David, how did you feel when Steve first presented his ideas for the outside?

DL It didn’t happen like that.

ST I had a feeling that we needed something that had an inherently theatrical signal. The gauze that can hide or reveal what lies behind it is a standard theatrical trick.

Could you use that as a piece of architecture?

DL We had a meeting at which we looked at lots of painters’ work with me saying, ‘I’m not quite sure where we’re going with this, but never mind.’ And then we found Clem Crosby. It’s like producing a show where you choose the director and hope that they will take you somewhere you weren’t expecting to go. A little bit of you is thinking: Oh my God, is this really a good idea? And the rest of you is going: Well, if I didn’t want to go somewhere I didn’t expect to go, I shouldn’t have got him in in the first place. Feature continues

ST Another very important early note from you was let’s keep the identity of the auditorium explicit on the outside. Let’s not subsume it into some big cultural palace, homogeneous thing. That was very strong in the original building as well.

DL You’ve got to see it from the street and know where the show is going to be playing. You’ve got to feel the intensity of it all. What I got very quickly was that the painting on the outside would somehow express the intensity on the inside. And the wavy bricks on the front of the small theatre do the same thing. Dense and intense – I don’t know a better way of putting it.

Did you discuss how a 15-year-old from Lambeth would respond to the new building?

ST Endlessly. I think that the building first and foremost should be fun. It should arouse curiosity. In one way, it’s a huge toy and you want to come in and play with it.