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A Grand Day Out

This is the story of what happened on Saturday June the 4th 2005, when the Leeds Grand Theatre had an open day to clear out its' storerooms and so on in preparation for a major refurbishment. Four members of the Skipton Players went and had a look and a rummage.

Chris Birch, the General Secretary of Skipton Players, appears in black,

Brian Wakeling, SLT's Webmaster, appears in dark blue,

Joanne Whistler, a valuable member, appears in maroon,

and Neil Hellewell, on loan from Sutton, was also present.

During one of the rehearsals for Skipton Players’ production of The Importance of Being Earnest, Chris Birch had shown the cast a flyer from Leeds Grand Theatre advertising an open day, which would be taking place on 4 June 2005. Following the Open Day the LGT would be closing its doors for over a year for a major restoration project costing £31.5m.

Four of us found the idea of backstage tours compelling, and so Brian Wakeling, Neil Hellewell, Chris Birch and I spent a delightful afternoon getting lost in LGT and eyeing up the stalls seats.

Firstly we all managed to scramble aboard the same train into Leeds. A miracle in itself. The weather was fine, but Jo took her brolly anyway.

I caught up with everyone on the train, where I showed everybody the review of The Importance of Being Earnest at the Bristol Old Vic in The Stage. There was some interesting conversation (about the Michael Jackson trial, mainly), and we arrived at Leeds just in time for Jo and Chris to buy some lunch. More conversation as we walked through the city, arriving at the Grand just before 2pm.

Once in Leeds, sandwiches and water helped to sustain us on our trek to the Grand and I was delighted to see so many people assembled there. Excitement was evident, along with the element of surprise. What would we see? What would we hear? What would we think? What would we buy?

Donation, leaflet, “right, what shall we do now?” We decided to see what was going under the hammer in the auction.

The auction had started when we arrived so we sat down patiently and saw dresses, armour, leather jackets and two rams heads sold for ridiculously low prices.

The auction was already in progress, and we went into the auditorium in time to see Lot 42, a golden fleece and ram’s-head mask from Medea, go under the hammer. We stayed for a few Lots, including programmes from past productions, a parasol from Madame Butterfly, and another, more impressive, ram’s-head mask.

There had also been Lloyd-loom tables and chairs sold earlier for £30.

Not knowing what any of the other Lots would be, and not being that interested in anything that had come up so far, we decided to have another crack at going backstage. I spotted one of the posters reminding people that we could buy a seat from the stalls for £25. We had a quick look at the seats near us, and then off we went to the foyer to try and get a catalogue. There wasn’t one, but we did find out that to buy seats, we’d have to go on stage.

We headed towards backstage, but the way there was crowded, so we went into the auditorium again. “Do we really want those seats?” “How are they put together?” “What condition are they in?” etc. “They look better than ours,” someone said. “That’s not hard,” I thought. Anyway, I went and had a close look at a couple. I reported back to Jo and Neil, who were peeking round a doorway - Chris had gone on a brief walkabout. “They’re in good nick, might be slightly bigger than ours, and they appear to be in fours and sixes, but I did see the odd single.”
“How much bigger?”
“Not much - maybe an inch or two. It’s mostly in the arms.”
Chris re-appeared, and my report was relayed to him. Then we had another go at getting backstage - no queue this time, but we found the wrong door and ended up scooting along under the apron to the other side of the auditorium, up some stairs, and there were the boxes. “Ah. Let’s go back.” We went back. We found the correct turning this time, and we went backstage.

One of the most surprising areas was the stage itself. With all the scenery stripped away, the large wings and great depth of the stage are revealed, and when you look upwards to the fly floor the height is dizzying.

Jo and Neil seemed a little overawed by the sheer size of the vast space behind the proscenium arch - six stories high, and twice the size of the entire Little Theatre building in each direction, the stage-wings-flytower space in even a modest theatre like the Leeds Grand is huge. I had been backstage at Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum before, so I knew what to expect, and Chris had been on tours of the place before now, but the complete bare stage-space was quite something to be in the middle of. I am not kidding when I say that it was bigger than the auditorium.

Anyway, we found the table where they were selling the stalls seats, and Chris launched into his spiel. “We’re from Skipton Little Theatre, and we’re thinking of buying some seats to replace our own, and so is there a cheap rate for bulk purchases?”
“How many will you be buying?”
“Seventy-five.”
Smiles jacked up a notch or three, “here, fill in this form, I’ll go and get the general manager.”

Yes, seats were available. Yes, we did buy some.
(Talkative, isn't he?)

The opportunity to improve the comfort of Skipton Little Theatre’s seating was just too good to miss. Reader, we bought them.

After a few minutes of frantic working out what we actually needed in the way of sets of seats, and possible prices, and maybe we should actually measure them, and other things of that ilk, a large bald man ambled over and started shaking hands. I pointed him in the direction of Chris. “Oh, call it fifteen hundred.”
“Right. I’ll just have to run it past the treasurer,” Chris said, disappearing backwards and reaching for his mobile.
“What about delivery?”
“Arrange it yourself - we can’t provide transport. You should be able to get some for two-fifty. Twelve-fifty.”
I nipped back to where Chris was talking to voicemail. “He says twelve-fifty, and we could get transport for two-fifty on top.” I don’t know whether he heard me. I got back to the group and listened in on Warren (“as in rabbits”) Smith (“as in Smith”) saying how he might like to have a day out in Skipton for a handover ceremony. “Fine, yeah, great.” Chris came back and said everything was okay. Warren wandered off, and we wandered over to the main memorabilia stall. They were selling all sorts of things, from posters to programmes, design sketches and all sorts. They were trying to get money for old rope - literally, with coils of stage rigging rope for £3 each.

On the stage there was a large stall selling memorabilia, posters, signs, photographs, etc. and that did good business all afternoon. Even better business after 3.30pm when all of the items were reduced to 50p. We bought some costume pictures to frame and hang inside SLT.

I bought a copy of the architectural plans of the Grand, and had my eye on what appeared to be an overhead video projector. The others had found the costume drawings, and I joined them in helping to sort through them for ones we liked. We bought some, and some CDs, and some Christmas cards, and then we started to wander, and wonder where we would go next. Once again, Warren Smith helped us decide, by appearing out of nowhere and asking Jo if she would like a makeover.

These events are always enlivened by the personalities who are there, so apart from our group of four, there was also Mr Warren Smith, the General manager. A larger than life character very well suited to his position of dealing with the public in a patient and charming manner.

With Jo made up to look like the Good Witch of the Disco North, we repaired to the Green Room (round the corner and down some stairs) to have some refreshment and gather our wits (well, buying 75 theatre seats is not something you do every day, is it?). Ostensibly we were going to talk logistics, but actually we talked about whether we would be able to put on a musical at SLT, and which one. It was now nearly three o’clock, and the open day finished at four, so we decided to make a move. We were going to join a tour, but we had no idea how long that may take, so we decided to wander independently.

And boy, did we get lost.

We found the room where you could vote for your favourite style of new seat, and since it was crowded, while the others were playing musical chairs with no music, I headed off in the direction of what was signposted as the Stage Manager’s office. I ended up on stage just in time to hear Warren Smith announce all memorabilia was now 50p. First things first, I bought the suspected video projector. Then I retraced my steps to find the others and tell them.

They had gone. Oh, well - look for them. Down a flight, up a flight, round a corner, under the stage. The maze of backstage corridors and rooms was just as huge as the stage space itself.

As we unexpectedly found ourselves back at the Green Room for the sixth time, we did wonder briefly whether we would ever find our way out. The theatre is a bit like an iceberg, with the auditorium and public rooms comprising only a fraction of the whole building. There are multiple dressing rooms, a large wardrobe room, corridors and offices galore, the paint frame where the scenery is created... the list goes on.

Mind you, with a basic floorplan knowledge, a good sense of direction, and a knowledge of design logic, you can find your way around any theatre, really. I was hot, and carrying something heavy that might at any moment split its bag, so I texted Chris, and went to wait on the stage.

As we continued our perambulations around the theatre, I kept noticing that certain walls had marker pen notes on them saying “demo wall”. I was wondering what a demonstration wall was for, exactly, when I realised it meant “demolish wall”! Once you started looking for the marker pen instructions, it became clear just how major the changes to the theatre were going to be.

Warren was at it again. As I went to take an impressive photo of the auditorium, he pointed to two elderly gentlemen in the dress circle. “Those two gentlemen are memorabilia! They have been nearly regular patrons of this theatre for the last ten years!”
I was standing nearby. “Nearly regular?”
“Nearly regular,” he replied, barely pausing.
I went back to waiting for the others to show up. They didn’t. However, after a few minutes of waiting, I saw them in a box. I picked up my stuff and headed off to meet them.

Chris was talking on his mobile outside the box and hadn’t got my text. The others were waiting inside. They had apparently been calling to me for the last few minutes, but I hadn’t heard them. As Chris went down to the stage to rifle through the memorabilia again, ...

I also went into the Queen’s loo and the Boardroom, the Green Room and Lighting Control Rooms.

... I suggested to the others that they wouldn’t want to miss the chance to go up to the fly-walks.

To start with I didn’t realise we could go up to the fly floor, from where the scenery is dropped down onto the stage. When Brian said he’d been up there I asked him to lead the way, as I can’t navigate my way out of a paper bag.

So, out of the box, down the corridor, across the stage, into the wing (ooh look, what a nice wicker sofa), up several flights of stairs, ...

Many stairs and corridors later, we passed the paint frame and found the door to the fly floor.

... and onto the fly-walks - six stories up, and another thirty feet at least of grid and rigging above us. It was quite an impressive sight. I went onto the cross fly-walk to take a photo looking down onto the stage and into the auditorium.

A view from the centre of the fly-walk down to the stage and auditorium

A balcony runs round the sides and back of the stage and many metal bars hang horizontally across the stage: it is from these that the scenery is hung. Large bars of metal provide counterbalancing for the scenery, which can weigh up to 5 tons.

We then went across to the main fly-walk, where all the counterweight clutches were. I gave a brief tutorial on how they worked, then I was given a more detailed one by the Grand’s DSM. He also told us that the legless chair hanging from the ceiling on the other fly-walk was not some sort of inspection chair, as I had thought, but was rather created by a flyman bored out of his skull one day. At that point, four o’clock sounded, and we made our way downwards.

Whilst waiting for Chris to rejoin us in the foyer, we remembered that we hadn’t actually measured the seats. So I nipped off and used my feet to measure them (I was wearing shoes exactly 12 inches long). Having put my feet all over someone else’s furniture, I came back and told them how big the chairs were. After a bit, we got bored waiting for Chris, so I phoned him, and lo - he appeared. We told him about the seat measurements.
“I’ve got twelve-inch shoes, so I measured them with my feet.”
“So how big are they?”
“Twenty-three,” I said. “Inches,” I added.
“Your feet?” asked Jo.

We walked out into the watery afternoon sunshine, elated but slightly stunned. We had just bought 75 theatre seats from Leeds Grand Theatre, and the reality of having spent so much of Skipton Players’ money was just beginning to dawn. Behind us, the reality of a major refurbishment and reconfiguration of the Leeds Grand Theatre was probably dawning on the staff and friends of the theatre.

We had barely gone fifty yards down the street, when I remembered that we hadn’t asked about the wicker sofa. Back I nipped again, leaving the others standing on a street corner, found Warren Smith and asked him. He said it had been sold, but I could have some lights instead, if I wanted. Never one to pass up an opportunity, I phoned Chris and asked him if we wanted some brass wall-lamps with long white glass shades. He didn’t know. Warren Smith said “make me an offer,” so I thought and suggested £15. Chris hmm-ed and haa-ed, and Warren said “ten and it’s a done deal.” So Chris and the others came and had a look at them, but said no.

I almost bought some wall lamps, but at £10 for six, I thought them a little on the expensive side.

Neil wanted the antique cash register that was sat next to the box they were in - as long as he could have it last month. It had been sold anyway.

That really was it this time, and we left the Grand carrying our booty, but alas, no wicker sofa. Oh, and the video OHP turned out to be merely a portable VCR and power transformer.

I have toured the Grand before, but this visit was a real delight.

 

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