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Sad news today as the Gate Theatre announces that it is closing all operations, the end to an almost 50-year-history.
Founded in 1979 above the Prince Albert Pub in Notting Hill, the Gate was a dynamic, international work-focussed theatre that served as a peer of other major off-West End venues like the Bush and Hampstead theatres. Some heavyweight British stage directors have run it on their way to the top, notably Stephen Daldry, Thea Sharrock, Carrie Cracknell and Ellen McDougall.
Unfortunately it’s now over. It’s sad but not a surprise. Unlike the Bush and Hampstead, the Gate never made it to a more modern new venue: it hung on it at Prince Albert for over 40 years, but closed during the pandemic. In 2023, citing the poor accessibility of its original venue, it took up residence in the larger Theatro Technis venue in Camden, but this was a complicated building share arrangement that greatly reduced the amount of shows it could stage. It also lost its Arts Council funding in 2022, and McDougall – its final permanent artistic director – departed in 2021.
It did produce a series of acclaimed shows in the post-Notting Hill era, including 2024’s Wish You Were Here, staged at Theatro Technis, and last year’s Scenes from the Climate Era, staged at the Playground Theatre.
The official press release announcing its closure states that ‘after several years of short-term success it has become apparent that this is not sustainable in the long-term’. That’s a bit vague but it’s fairly apparent that despite the team’s heroic efforts, the Gate no longer has the means to stage the sort of year-round programme it once did and that successful individual shows weren’t enough to keep the organisation afloat.
Speaking personally as Time Out’s theatre editor, I’ll really miss the weird and provocative work the Gate used to stage, and I’ll miss its eccentric, cramped old venue, which accounted for about 90 percent of the times I have ever been to Notting Hill. But it’s obvious why an attempt was made to move somewhere bigger and move accessible and it is, unfortunately, rotten luck that it was looking to move house in the aftermath of a pandemic and a round of Arts Council funding that was famously harsh on London companies. That the Gate continued to stage good work against the odds afterwards is really impressive, but you can of course see why its creative and management team called it quits – but they didn’t go down quietly.
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