The Rose Theatre, Kingston officially opened its doors 10 years ago this month. Jane McGowan chats to Executive Producer Jerry Gunn as the team prepares to celebrate
Photo by Mark Douet
Joely Richardson and Michael Xavier in The War Of The Roses
Who would have thought that when the curtain came down on La Vie Parisienne, with music hall female impersonator Sonny Jenks, at the Kingston Empire Theatre on March 27, 1955, it would be another 50 years before stars would once again tread the boards in the riverside town.
True, the neighbouring theatres of Richmond and Wimbledon stood valiantly in the breach. But the ancient market town cried out for a venue of its own. And as the clamour grew louder, it began to reach some influential ears.
In 1989, remnants of the Elizabethan Rose Theatre on London’s Bankside had come to light, prompting a campaign to preserve the historic site. The dying Lord Olivier gave his last public speech in support of it. Meanwhile, broadcaster David Jacobs was harbouring ambitions of his own: a plan to give Kingston its long-awaited playhouse. And how better to design it than on the model of the Bankside Rose?
Enter the late Sir Peter Hall, freed from his harness as Director of the National Theatre and on the lookout for projects new. When Jacobs introduced him to the fledgling Kingston scheme, he caught the vision at once – with entirely unpredictable results.
“I had been working with Peter ona production of As You Like It in Bath,” recalls Jerry Gunn, Executive Producer of the Rose since 2006, “when we had a call from New York to say that a theatre over there would like to stage it, but that it had to come ‘direct from London’. Peter looked at me and said: ‘Kingston’s in London, isn’t it?’ I replied that it was. To which he said: ‘Let me take you to a theatre I have been looking at…”
So Jerry followed Peter to the Rose in the High Street, then merely a shell.
“The only things in place were the walls and the floors,” he remembers. “There were no staircases, doors, seats or anything. We had to get portaloos for the audience and curtains for the dressing rooms to give the actors a bit of dignity, but somehow we remounted As You Like It [with Rebecca Hall, Sir Peter’s daughter, and Dan Stevens from Downton Abbey] so that it could go to New York ‘direct from London’.”
Tristram Kenton
Judi Dench in A Midsummer Night's Dream
That was in 2004. With Hall now officially at the helm, the next few years were spent raising the profile of the embryonic theatre, as the likes of Dame Judi Dench and Jimmy Tarbuck pitched up for star-studded galas. Also key were the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames and Kingston University, both of which continue to subsidise the building, owned by Kingston Theatre LLP. In return, the theatre hosts a number of community events each year and also gives away around 4,500 tickets to local schoolchildren.
It was on January 16, 2008 that the Rose officially opened its doors, with Sir Peter directing Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. Another Downton favourite, Michelle Dockery – Lady Mary herself – starred with Neil Pearson, and both the theatre and the performance received first-rate reviews. Yet Hall’s dreams of creating a resident company had been dashed by a lack of cash and he promptly passed the baton to rising directorial star, Stephen Unwin.
“Peter’s vision didn’t quite happen,” admits Jerry. “So we had to start off as a receiving theatre – which means you don’t produce your own work. But the dream was still to drive our own stuff and it wasn’t long before we could. The first one was Shakespearean comedy Love’s Labour’s Lost, in October 2008, which Peter came back to direct.”
With Unwin’s steady hand on the tiller, the Rose Theatre flourished. Peter Hall returned in 2010 for a final, memorable encore: a version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream starring Dame Judi Dench herself – a coup for any theatre, let alone an infant regional one.
“It’s that sort of stuff that makes the Rose stand out from other theatres in the area,” says Jerry.
Nobby Clark
The late Sir Peter Hall with Judi Dench
Soon the Rose had developed a dynamic mix of ‘received’ and sole productions, with its Christmas shows becoming a highlight of the Kingston cultural calendar. It was a conscious decision, affirms Jerry, to eschew traditional panto for more dramatic, atmospheric fare.
“There are so many big, big pantos nearby, and we wanted to champion both storytelling and our youth theatre, which has gone from a membership of about 10 people back in 2008 to something like 750. Under the leadership of Ciaran McConville, our director of learning, the kids were getting better and better. So in 2014, using a mix of professional actors and youth theatre members, we staged The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It was a real hit and we have stuck with that formula ever since. Now Christmas is bonkers busy for us.”
And while nurturing local talent remains a major goal, the Rose has also retained its ability to attract some massive names. None more so than Sir Trevor Nunn, who approached Jerry with the idea of staging The Wars of the Roses – a trilogy of Shakespeare history plays culminating in Richard III.
“Sir Trevor is very special to us, as he was to Peter, his mentor. But it was a monumental production and a monumental risk. I had to battle everyone in this building and on the board in order to do it.
“We’d reached a point, I believed, where we had to raise the bar and put ourselves back on the map. We had been producing very good stuff, but we needed something to make people sit up and say: ‘OK, wow! It’s the Rose.’”
Jerry was convinced that Sir Trevor’s 2016 restaging of the 1960s RSC adaptation would do the trick – and it did. The announcement alone was reported in all the broadsheets and the production played to packed houses. Soon the theatre was catching the eye of other big international stars. When John Malkovich breezed in to direct Zach Helm’s Good Canary, it not only filled the seats again but generated several more miles of column inches. As for Sir Trevor, he later returned for a production of King John – “a tricky play and not an audience grabber”, as Jerry diplomatically puts it – before agreeing to become an associate advisory director.
Inspired, the team pressed on. In 2017 they again struck gold, this time with an adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s mega-selling Neopolitan Novels, styled as My Brilliant Friend.
“We couldn’t stage the quartet as four separate plays, so we hit on the idea of making it just two plays and turning it into a huge, creative event. It brought in around 55% new business. Many in the audience were book clubbers, mainly females who were spending the day here and loving every minute of it.”
My Brilliant Friend Part 1
Kingston loved it too. As Jerry is quick to acknowledge, the theatre receives abundant support from the town and an event such as My Brilliant Friend provides a chance to return the favour. In the event, restaurants overflowed with hungry theatregoers rushing to eat in between performances. Yet relations haven’t always been that chummy.
“When we started, the theatre was a real political football. Every week there were letters in the Surrey Comet asking why the council was putting money into such a thing. It was very rocky in those early days.
“But I haven’t seen a derogatory letter for at least five years. When we look at where the audience has come from, yes, we get people from London and further out into Surrey, but in the main it is very, very local. We are absolutely embedded in the community.”
Sustaining the theatre as a viable business is obviously a priority. To which end its top-quality family work – which has included magnificent adaptations of Roald Dahl’s The Twits and The Witches and Julia Donaldson’s Room on the Broom – creates a firm foundation on which to build the audience of tomorrow.
“We programme very much for families and the community. Theatre gets a bit of a rough ride from those who perceive it as highbrow, but that’s not how this organisation is at all. We want local children to get used to coming to the theatre. Just getting them through the door was a big challenge at first, but now with Easter shows and Christmas they are building it into their lives.”
Meanwhile, as the anniversary celebrations get under way, the big news is a forthcoming production of Much Ado About Nothing, starring former Bake Off presenter Mel Giedroyc. Surprising casting? Not according to Jerry.
“Mel is a really talented actress,” he affirms. “Anyone who says: ‘Oh, she’s just someone off the telly,’ is talking rubbish.”
Fittingly, the theatre is also launching the Peter Hall Emerging Artist Fund in the name of its founder, who died late last year. It will be open to local theatre artists passionate about their craft – the first grant is for a director – and will take the form of a one-year residency.
“Peter’s death was terribly sad news – not only for me, as he was a good friend, but for everyone at the theatre. His legacy is our legacy. He did all sorts of interesting work, but it was always directed at the audience. He didn’t have vanity projects – just good solid stuff designed to appeal to the public. I hope that we continue to do likewise. At the Rose, the play will absolutely always be the thing.”
- For further information, visit: rosetheatrekingston.org
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