The Crucible Theatre Re-opens!
The Crucible Theatre is one of Sheffield’s most famous buildings, noted as both one of the finest regional theatres in the country and perennial home to the World Snooker Championships. After a lengthy redevelopment it has this month re-opened to the public and I was one of the first people to be invited through its doors.
The original Crucible Theatre was opened in 1971 and had been two years in making. The architects were Renton, Howard and Wood and they created a long, low, stone fronted building with a distinctive red foyer. In 2007, the theatre was closed to the public (although a section of it reopened briefly to stage the snooker championships) and an extensive redevelopment was promised. Sheffield Theatres had promised a radical and modern rebuild of the theatre to bring it storming into the 21st Century. As usual in these matters, the project ran behind schedule but after a gap of over two and a half years, and at a cost in excess of £15million, the Crucible was finally reborn in February 2010.
I had great expectations for this building but it is difficult to express just how disappointing I found it. Yes, the theatre had been showing its 70s roots, but then I too was born in 1971 and none of us are immune to the ticking of time. I believe, however, that the strong image created by Renton, Howard and Wood was still relevant today and a change always seemed unnecessary to me. Once the work began though, I embraced the change and looked forward to a new era for the building. This is where the main disappointment lies: the changes that have been carried out seem very superficial, and it is very hard to see how the time and money has been spent?
The most striking change is to the Crucible frontage itself. Gone is the red façade to be replaced by a large screen that changes colour constantly. Rather than giving the hoped for ‘modern’ touch this seems glaring and tacky and is anachronistic to the Victorian square on which it sits, especially so when compared to the classic elegance of The Lyceum theatre next door.
Once inside the theatre, we see that the red carpeting has been replaced by a sickly orange design with blue and red chevrons. The box office has been moved from a central position to a side position next to the entrance. In a playful motif, the counter front has been made from recycled banknotes. Chief architect Mark Foley has called this ‘a subliminal gesture as you can’t tell just by looking at it’.
The other main change is to the bar area. Again it has moved from a wide central area to a corner location. The leather effect chairs are large and grouped together so that at busy times it becomes very difficult to accommodate the crowds around the small, cramped bar. It seems a perverse decision to shrink the bar area in such a way to give more space to the lurid carpets.
The auditorium itself seems not to have changed at all, which would be a good thing if it didn’t leave you wondering where the £15million had gone? My first impressions were not helped by visible dirty marks being present on the walls and carpeting, all the more surprising as the theatre had not been open for more than a day.
To my mind the two years spent on remoulding this building have been wasted, and a great opportunity to provide some startling new architecture in Sheffield has been missed. Fair enough that the building is far more energy efficient and a few other necessary renovations have been done, but all in all the architects, Burrell, Foley, Fisher have created a piece that seems all too ‘subliminal’ and not sufficiently visual.
Comments are closed!