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Richard Briers
Ned Sherrin
Sir Donald Sinden |
Save our theatre
Actors urge V&A to keep museum
open
LEADING theatrical figures are uniting in a campaign
to try and persuade the Victoria and Albert Museum not to close
the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden.
Actors including Richard Briers and Sir Donald Sinden, producer
and raconteur Ned Sherrin and theatre heritage organisations
are all calling for the V&A to keep the Russell Street establishment
open.
But trustees of the V&A, who own the site, are holding crisis
meetings later this month and are considering closing the museum
and splitting up its huge and unique collection.
The V&A has failed in two attempts to win Heritage Lottery
Funding to support the much-needed refurbishment of the site,
firstly a £9.5 million application and the most recent
was the refusal of a £2.5 million grant in December.
Trustees of the V&A are meeting on March 23 when the Theatre
Museum, which has been in its current site since 1987, is expected
to be an agenda item but a spokeswoman said no final decisionwould
be taken until May.
Options for the museum include touring exhibitions, partnerships
with theatres and other venues, exhibitions and displays at
the V&A.
Last Thursday Richard Briers described the prospect of splitting
up the collection as “awful”.
He said: “I am still getting over the shock. I have known
it since the beginning and it is a remarkable and priceless
collection. It would be awful to dissipate it.”
“It is very special, it would be awful if they smash it
up.”
Ned Sherrin said: “It has a wonderful collection of things
and its archive is invaluable.”
Sir Donald Sinden described the prospect of closure as “disastrous”.
He said: “It is essential that we have a theatre museum
in England, in London, where we have the best theatre in the
world.”
And John Levitt, from Save London’s Theatres, said: “It
would be utterly wrong of them to split the collection. It is
a wonderful central location and you will no longer have a museum
with the full collection, we will only see bits and pieces when
the V&A has space.”
A spokeswoman for the South Kensington museum insisted that
no decision had been made and they were looking at all the options. |
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