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AUGUST 1 2024
NEWS
Former Actors Centre up for sale for £4m
GEORGIA LUCKHURST
Seven Dials Playhouse has been put up for sale in a move Equity has said “demands answers”.
The long-term lease at Covent Garden’s 1A Tower Street is listed for sale at £4,020,000, as a “virtual freehold interest” expiring in December 2987. It is currently owned by Seven Dials Playhouse Limited.
As part of the conditions of any sale, the property would be leased back to Seven Dials Playhouse, with a rent of £300,000 per year, or £38.61 per square foot – for 15 years. The Stage understands this move would give it financial stability at what has been a turbulent time for the theatre – which in its most recent accounts, made up to March 31, 2022, admitted its first year of trading since rebranding from the Actors Centre had “proven harder than we imagined financially”.
A spokesperson for campaign group Actor at the Centre – which has been calling for the theatre to return to its founding purpose as a space for actors’ training and development – called the sale “an act of vandalism”,
while the general secretary of trade union Equity said the building had been “bought and paid for by actors, for actors”.
Equity general secretary Paul W Fleming said: “The building is an accessible training hub, designed to meet the needs of artists who want to hone their craft and be part of a community. It is bricks and mortar for workers in an industry built on shifting sand.
“After two and a half years of attempting to understand why the ‘Seven Dials Playhouse’ has dumped the most economically successful part of the Actors Centre model, and excluded the workforce from participation in the space, to see the leasehold up for sale is shocking but not surprising. Equity is united with the Actor at the Centre campaign, demanding answers, and solutions, to the disaster that has unfolded since the Centre was rebranded.”
In a listing about the sale posted to surveyors Hanover Green, the leaseback to the theatre is described as a 15-year lease, with a tenant-break option in the 10th year.
The revelation once again places scrutiny on 1A Tower Street, which was purchased by the Actors Centre in the 1990s as a permanent home for the
organisation’s workshops, training and peer-to-peer networking.
The names of those formerly involved with the Actors Centre include such leading stage professionals as Ian McKellen, Alec Guinness, Judi Dench and more.
But in 2021, the charity rebranded as Seven Dials Playhouse, with chief executive Amanda Davey previously telling the Guardian that out of concern for its “survival”, management had had to do things differently and that it needed to “reimagine what the organisation was for”.
In its most recent accounts, representatives for Seven Dials Playhouse Limited made reference to the building’s money-raising potential, writing: “We own a valuable central London property asset, which is our home, and while we are optimistic of a positive outcome given our ongoing efforts to obtain future funding we have not excluded or discounted any of the potential options that might be available to us.”
Critics say Seven Dials Playhouse has travelled far beyond its founding remit as a home to support actors and become simply another Off-West End receiving house.
ACE creates role to support freelancers
MATTHEW HEMLEY
Arts Council England has created a role dedicated to the needs of freelancers.
The post – director, London and individual practitioners – has been filled by Yasmin Khan. Her role will be to “help strategically enable creative freelancers across all art forms and regions”, ACE said.
She will be responsible for taking a national leadership role in shaping and delivering the Arts Council’s work, policy and funding processes as they relate to freelancers and individual practitioners, it added.
Khan will join ACE in September, having previously worked at the Science Museum and at the British Library.
“I feel it’s an ideal time to embrace this new role at ACE. I’m so excited I’ll have a chance to collaborate with such talented and dedicated colleagues who enable England’s art sector to thrive,” she said.
Earlier this year, MPs backed demands for a freelancers’ commissioner to “champion” the interests of creative freelancers.
A report published by the cross-party Culture, Media and Sport Committee recommended the government appoint a commissioner to advocate for freelancers.
Banning zero-hour contracts
RSC changes
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of the talent pool and no doubt increased costs for theatres.”
Meanwhile, Sofi Berenger, executive producer and acting chief executive at north London’s Kings Head Theatre, said her venue believed in offering zero-hour London Living Wage contracts (£13.15 an hour) to help “best support artists, who often value flexibility due to their unpredictable working patterns.”
Berenger said the arrangement permitted artists to pursue creative ambitions alongside working, and called for the government to consider excusing theatre from the zero-hours contracts ban. She said: “An exemption for the arts and cultural sector and an investigation into the benefits there are in zero-hour contracts for freelance artists is vital to the ecology of the sector.”
A spokesperson for the Department for Business and Trade said the government was “committed to working with businesses to give workers more rights to be heard in the workplace”, including ensuring those who want to work flexibly can do so, but that it would be “ending one-sided flexibility and exploitative zero-hours contracts”.
They added: “That is why we will ensure workers have a contract that reflects the number of hours they regularly work, while allowing them to remain on a zero-hours contract if they decide this is what suits their needs.”
But the concern remains as to how these distinctions will be implemented, with
Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre co-chief executive Claire Walker saying her organisations were briefing the government on their concerns regarding the forthcoming Employment Rights Bill.
She said the theatre sector “enjoys strong and healthy employment relations”, which had been “developed over decades between ourselves, as employer representatives, and our partners in the trade unions on behalf of the theatre sector.”
Walker pointed out that as well as benefiting freelancers, zero-hours contracts allow employers to “manage seasonal fluctuations effectively.”
Under proposed legislation announced in the King’s Speech on July 17, prime minister Keir Starmer will pursue a “new deal for working people”, including a ban on what Labour has called “exploitative” zero-hours contracts.
The change in law would give workers the right to a contract reflecting the number of hours they regularly work, as well as requiring bosses to give “reasonable notice” and compensation if shifts are changed or cancelled.
The government has described the bill as “the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation”, with the legislation also reforming practices around parental leave, sick pay and unfair dismissal.
Justifying the decision to ban zero-hours agreements, the government said such jobs permitted only “one-sided flexibility”, to the benefit of employers and detriment of workers – about one million of whom in the UK are currently engaged on the contracts.
But the policy has drawn flak from both theatre management and those who take on zero-hours contracts themselves – often to support their own creative goals.
Director Matthew Iliffe, who has staged shows at Summerhall, Bristol Old Vic and Riverside Studios, said he works two casual box office jobs alongside his freelance work, to support himself.
He said: “Thankfully, I am a busy director but work is still inconsistent and the fees on offer don’t nearly cover most people’s living costs, especially in London.”
Iliffe added: “Without flexible work that fits around directing, I would have to quit the industry altogether.”
Philippa Childs, head of creative industries union BECTU, said her organisation welcomed the government’s plan to “make work pay and crack down on poor working practices and exploitative zero-hours contracts”.
But she too noted that their flexibility “often lends itself to creative-sector work”, and said BECTU would be “keeping a keen eye on the draft legislation”.
Fellow union Equity said Labour’s new deal for working people must be “implemented in full”.
General secretary Paul W Fleming said: “This includes ending zero-hours contracts which empower bosses at the expense of working people. Our members are on zerohours contracts outside of the industry to support their careers due to the low pay and insecurity they experience in the arts and entertainment sectors.”
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a more inclusive approach to how we respond to writers’ needs.”
When pushed on the changes to its New Works department, it provided a follow-up statement.
“While we are unable to go into detail, we can confirm that, following a period of reflection and consultation that has now concluded, there have been some internal changes to our New Works function at the RSC, which include the introduction of the new writer-in-residence role and some changes to reporting lines,” it said.
R S C/ S A M A L L A R D
Royal Shakespeare Theatre and Swan Theatre
