What is a museum for? Since the V&A and Royal Opera House announced plans to shut London’s Theatre Museum, many people have asked themselves this question.
The V&A, who own the Museum, will not go ahead with a proposed partnership with the Royal Opera House to run a new centre on the site of the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden. The investment required to transform the current building into a suitable space for the future was considered to be too high.
The Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House, Tony Hall, highlighted the problem saying, “though there has been a huge amount of moral support for the Theatre Museum, money for the most part has not been forthcoming.”
In an appropriate reference to one of London’s most famous musicals, My Fair Lady, the Theatre Museum is housed in the old buildings of the Covent Garden Flower Market, in the heart of London’s theatre district. Its collections span theatre, musicals, circus, ballet, and puppetry, and house costumes, stage sets, memorabilia, photographs and a film archive of performances as well as studio theatre. The museum runs educational programmes, and public exhibits spanning everything from Laurence Olivier’s costumes, to Sir Michael Redgrave’s diaries, Kylie Minogue’s costumes, and Noel Coward’s make-up box.
In March, museum employees were surprised to have the proposed closure revealed to them via a small gossip piece in the Sunday Times. After outcry from the industry the V&A launched the Theatre Museum Review in March, to officially consult over the museum’s future. The Stage reported that the Society of London Theatre chief executive Richard Pulford “questioned why the V&A was asking for views when it seemed to be already pursuing a partnership with the Royal Opera House”. SOLT had originally been suggested as a potential partner, but this never came to fruition.
Despite the lack of money being offered, the noise over the proposed closure has been loud and consistent. According to lobby group Save London’s Theatres Campaign, the Theatre Museum has been “starved of resources and treated as the Cinderella” of the V&A. Stage Magazine immediately set up the Save the Theatre Museum Campaign and actors like Dame Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave and Peter Bowles lent their clout in a letter that called for Government intervention. And the Actors’ union, Equity, lobbied hard, releasing a statement to the BBC saying: “We are astonished that the world’s centre of theatre appears to be unwilling or unable to sustain a theatre museum.” The discussion boards from the Museum’s own website are teeming with support from fringe theatre groups who have been assisted by the museum, international scholars and educationalists who use its resources, and several prominent names, mixed with the general public.
So what are they saying? Some argue that theatre deserves its own museum and that the collection shouldn’t be broken up. Even though the V&A have said they will preserve the collection, most feel strongly it belongs in the heart of “theatreland”, rather than the storerooms at the V&A. South Kensington is also a long walk for a tourist after a matinee show. Some critics have highlighted the tortured history between the V&A and the Theatre Museum and the fine print behind the collection’s history. When the Theatre Museum began it took on the V&A’s theatre collections, as well as those from the privately founded Theatre Museum in Leighton House. Many of the gifts to Leighton House, and the Theatre Museum itself, were given to be part of a dedicated Theatre Museum, so people fear that the V&A might have to return some and the collection will be depleted. There are also concerns that public access to its collection should continue – not just access for scholars. The issue of consultation has also raged, with Equity claiming that the decision to close the Museum was made without the scrutiny of parliament, and that the V&A is specifically given responsibility to administer the Theatre Museum in the Heritage Act.
But the arguments to save it are overwhelmingly led by the heart: Theatre is not just made up of the shows that are put on and the costumes, photos, stage sets and memories left over – it’s got a strong magical pull, and is tied up with the identity of this part of London. The Museum holds a special place in the industry’s heart, as well as being a source of inspiration and documentation and validating its role in the public sphere as something to be studied and commemorated for its cultural influence – a position hard fought for in the past. As Britain’s only performing arts museum in a country renowned for its theatre, it has been in existence in various forms for over 80 years but only arrived at the specially converted Covent Garden site in 1987. The Museum is no stranger to controversy – campaigning for a ‘National Museum of Theatre Arts’ began in 1911 by Gabrielle Enthoven, who eventually convinced the V&A to accept her gift of 100,000 play-related items in 1924, forming the basis of the vast collection that has been accumulated since then.
Over 2005/06 the Museum received 165,994 visitors. A recent visit to the museum revealed a collection of awe-inspiring proportions but badly in need of re-structuring. Fascinating items are hidden in subterranean corridors of display cases. There is some attempt at interactivity, but the bulk of the story is displayed in narrative and posters on the cramped walls. With such an interesting history, the collection could offer so much, but is clearly in need of re-thinking, which requires investment.
While the V&A’s Trustees will continue to review the situation, they will face questions from the Commons Culture Select Committee, which is conducting an investigation into museums. Meanwhile, the V&A is proposing a new gallery for its theatrical collections at the V&A in South Kensington, complete with touring displays, education activities and a major exhibition in 2009 of the collection’s Diaghilev and Ballets Russes costumes and designs.
So while the Covent Garden site may close, the collections and celebration of Britain’s unique theatrical heritage will hopefully live on.
