According to a report in yesterday’s Evening Standard, Knight Frank estate agency have designated the South Bank as one of London’s prime property hot spots, adding the area to its house price index for the most sought-after parts of the capital that have previously included Mayfair, Belgravia and Kensington.
Perhaps the Monopoly board will have to be re-drawn sometime soon. [CLICK BELOW TO CONTINUE READING]
The Old Kent Road, of course, has long been the cheapest property on the board (and the only one, incidentally, in south London), but with the imminent regeneration of the Elephant and Castle even that may change. As a spokesman for Southwark Council says in the Standard, “From Canada Water to the Elephant and Castle, we are seeing London’s centre of gravity being pulled south of the river”. Maybe, finally, contemporary Shakespeare audiences won’t snort in derision when they hear the line in Twelfth Night where Antonio advises Sebastian, “In the south suburbs, at the Elephant, is best to lodge.”
This is all good news for me, since I used to live just off the New Kent Road in the Elephant – and now live just up the road in Lant Street, Borough (which only last night a friend who works at the National immediately fingered as the location of Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith, so although not quite as famous as a Monopoly board location, is clearly well known now in literary circles). But Knight Frank themselves have singled out a key factor in the regeneration of the area: according to a spokesma, it “has been led by cultural initiatives, with projects on the Royal Festival Hall and National Theatre developments. It now includes the rejuvenated Borough Market, Globe Theatre and, most significantly, Tate Modern.”
And still they keep coming: last night I went to the amazing new temporary quarters that Southwark Playhouse have installed themselves in tucked just off Tooley Street, a minute from the London Dungeon. It may not be easy to find – I had to ring the press agent on her mobile for directions as I got close but not close enough and lost my nerve, and I gather one leading critic tried to go on the weekend and gave up when he couldn’t find it – but I (and he) should have simply been directed to the Anvil. In the days long before the current More London development across the street, the Shipwrights Arms pub that the new Southwark Playhouse is immediately behind used to be a notorious gay sex club. (And yes, I speak from experience).
Ousted last year from the home they established on Southwark Bridge Road (which is still, apparently, available for theatrical use as the Pacific Playhouse, according to the signs outside, but not yet offering anything to draw us there), Southwark Playhouse is going from strength to strength – and though they’ve been promised a new purpose-built home at the new Elephant development, I wouldn’t be surprised if they wanted to stay here. I am sorry I missed the opening show there last month, Reverence, which took audiences on a promenade journey through its spaces: according to Lyn Gardner’s Guardian review, “Goat and Monkey’s promenade production oozes atmosphere and makes terrific use of the cavernous, vaulted ceiling spaces under London Bridge station (the new premises of Southwark Playhouse). Like the Shunt Vaults nearby, this is an astounding space, and one that Goat and Monkey use very astutely”.
Last night’s opening, for a 1930s Kaufman and Hart rarely-seen Broadway classic You Can’t Take it with You that featured a cast of 18 plus a live kitten (though it was a pity that the snakes that the script also specifies seemed fake), revealed the theatre in a more traditional L-shaped configuration. But the added seating capacity that the theatre now has, and the commodious bar, could give the Menier Chocolate Factory in the other direction a run for its money.
Just yesterday, though, the Menier announced its fourth West End transfer: after the successes of Fully Committed (which went to the Arts), Sunday in the Park with George (Wyndham’s, and next year, Broadway’s Studio 54) and Little Shop of Horrors (Duke of York’s, then New Ambassadors), it is taking its current hit Dealer’s Choice to the Trafalgar Studios in December.
But not every South Bank theatre needs to have the West End in its sights; the Union Theatre in Union Street has plied its more modest trade there for the last ten years under founder Sasha Regan. In the October issue of a local property magazine called Reach, Sasha recalls, “At the beginning we didn’t have the tube station and the street lighting was terrible. People would phone the theatre and say, ‘is it safe to come?’ Whereas now, because of the Tate and the Globe, we don’t get those phone calls”. So the area’s increasing visibility is improving her lot, too. And the small covered but outdoor café that is independently run all day from the front of the theatre – and where I buy my daily coffee on the way in to the office I rent nearby – is another local amenity that gives the place a daytime life as well as a nighttime one.
