Since then the theatre has opened 10 productions of its own, as well as welcoming touring companies and local amateurs. 75,000 tickets have been sold for over 400 performances, an overall 65% capacity, which compares very favourably with most regional theatres. What used to be a tourist attraction has become a favourite with local audiences too - the number of Cumbrian residents attending performances has increased enormously, and the theatre’s home-grown pantomime attracted a 95% capacity.
Keswick’s residents have something to be proud of in their new theatre, a low-slung, slightly Japanese-looking building (by the MEB Partnership, with Christopher Richardson primarily responsible for the design and theatre consultancy) which sits among trees just a stone’s throw from the lake, looking out across meadowland to the fells. Its least interesting elevation is the one that the visitor sees first, but a large shield bearing the legend ‘Theatre by the Lake’ alleviates the starkness of this view.
The 350-seater auditorium itself is approached from the airy first floor. At first glance, its metal balconies and side-boxes recall the courtyard theatres of Iain Mackintosh, but the normal configuration of the seating is more Victorian, with most of the audience in a shallow stalls arc under a balcony. Wide side aisles give an unusual sense of space. There is a useful flexibility about the area, too, not simply in the lifts which can add a forestage or create an orchestra pit, but in the demountable seating which enabled the spring production of Romeo and Juliet to be played in-the-round. An open walkway in the technical gallery which runs all round the walls above the space, including the proscenium, gives easy access to lighting positions, and similarly unobtrusive access is available from the balconies. Control is from the rear of the stalls.
The theatre also boasts a small (70-seat) studio with similar flexibility - Denis Lumborg’s One Fine Day was playing to a corner-angled seating arrangement when I visited. Time will tell whether the theatre can keep hold of the large audiences it has been attracting with its inaugural, fairly populist programming under artistic director Ian Forrest. Its present success has been achieved with very little public funding, but it will need more subsidy to help its more adventurous plans.
Ian Herbert
