Manchester

Royal Exchange

St Ann’s Square

Built in 1729 on the site currently occupied by M&S, Manchester’s original Exchange was a grand affair. Over the following century and a half it was demolished, moved, rebuilt, demolished and rebuilt again, before becoming the world’s biggest commercial trading floor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But as the cotton market faded, so did trading at what was by then known as the Royal Exchange. Business ceased on New Year’s Eve of 1968; its last breath is commemorated in cotton prices still posted high on the walls.

The following year, a group of theatrical producers voiced the idea of building a theatre within the existing Victorian shell. Finance was predictably difficult to source, yet seven years and £1.2 million later, the Royal Exchange Theatre was complete, built to designs by architectural firm Levitt Bernstein. The ribbon was cut in September 1976 by Sir Laurence Olivier.

‘The aim was to create a theatre of national standing outside London,’ explains Founding Artistic Director Braham Murray. ‘At that time, audiences outside London either got try-outs for the West End, post-London runs with inferior casts, or rep productions.’ It took time, but Murray and colleagues eventually achieved their ambition.

In 1996 came the IRA bomb, detonated a couple of hundred yards away, and which caused severe structural damage to the theatre. While the venue was being rebuilt, loyal audiences watched plays in a makeshift tent. The place reopened in 1998 with a new café and a dedicated studio space given over to new work. The play chosen for the theatre’s relaunch was Stanley Houghton’s Hindle Wakes – the same work that had been running when the explosion went off. A symbol of the theatre’s defiance and indefatigability, it was a perfect choice.

Murray has taken to his original task with such enthusiasm that, as the theatre celebrated its 30th birthday in 2006, he was still working within its confines. Here’s to another 30 years.

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