Walking down St Martin’s Lane last night on the way to the London Coliseum opening of The Makropulos Case, I passed the Albery – soon to be the Coward – and Cameron Mackintosh was on the pavement, talking about the front-of-house signage to his staff. That’s one of the things that him: his hands-on attention to the tiniest detail, whether of a show or a theatre. Another, of course, is his palpable enthusiasm for everything he touches, and when I stop to say hello, he whisks me into the theatre to show me the refurbishment work that is being done on it. The theatre has only been dark since Saturday night’s last performance of Blackbird, with Cameron’s production of Avenue Q kicking off previews from June 2, so time is of the essence; but already, just five days since it was available, the entire theatre is in the midst of being re-carpeted and re-seated from the stalls to the balcony and all the bars refurbished.
Leading me to the balcony, he remembers that it was up here that he first saw Lionel Bart’s Oliver! – a show he subsequently ASM’d on a tour of, then toured himself as a producer early in his career. The small bar down the right hand staircase as you descend to the stalls is being named in Lionel Bart’s honour, and already there’s an archive display of programme covers from his shows. The rear stalls bar is being named for Noel Coward, as is the entire theatre.
But the proper and serious refurbishment that he is doing to each of the theatres within the expanding portfolio of West End houses he now controls is not just wonderful in its own right of making them such enticing and beautiful venues, but it also sets the standards that the rest of the West End should be shamed into following. Of course, they’ll protest that he has the money and they don’t; but why not? As landlord of the Palace, Andrew Lloyd Webber took 18 years of good rent from Mackintosh’s production of Les Miserables; yet when that production finally moved to the Queen’s, it merely acquired a gloss of grim, grey paint before re-opening for business.
A couple of years ago, Cameron told me in an interview that the investment in the refurbishment of the Prince Edward, the first of his theatres to receive a make-over in the mid-90s, has “come back time and time again. These kinds of investments have paid back. But what I also know is that whatever happens, I will leave for my foundation and indeed the enjoyment of future theatregoers buildings that are in a much better state than when I go them.”
So it’s not just good business, but also a fantastic legacy. And one that outruns any show.
