Have I got noose for you...

Did I say that they couldn’t begin work on the floor until the ceiling had been finished? Well, it seems they can and they have! While one team are working in one half of the auditorium and up on high, another team are taking apart the old raked floor in the other half – and quickly filling up the enormous skip outside the workshop.

Most of us are aware of the spooky stories surrounding The Playhouse but a new twist was added yesterday when this noose fell out of the ceiling when one of the panels was being removed. Covered in dust, it had obviously been up in the roof space for a very long time and is tied with an extremely good hangman’s knot! Presumably a long-lost prop from one of our earliest shows, or used in some way in the construction of the roof? Answers on a postcard please.

And speaking of spooky stories, I am trying to verify the facts, but Admiral Nelson’s right hand man may well have committed suicide in our baths…

The work begins...

Monday 28 April, and there is a queue outside the box office. This would not be an unusual sight at 7 pm, as the majority of our shows in the past six months have sold very well indeed. However, this is 8 am, the box office isn’t open, and everyone appears to be wearing yellow fluorescent waistcoats. These gentlemen are, of course, the first arrivals from the team of contractors undertaking the theatre refurbishment.

A fantastic number of members turned out yesterday (huge thanks) to clear the auditorium – even the cast and crew of Copenhagen, who only finished their production a few hours earlier and must have been shattered after two performances the previous day. I don’t know about them, but I certainly found it rather eerie standing in a completely bare theatre this morning, knowing that within a matter of hours it would already start looking different.

Dave Rackstraw, project manager from principal contractor Spacetailors, hands a hefty file of plans and instructions to the site manager, Craig, and with that, the theatre more or less belongs to him. Suddenly, there is great activity. By 10 am, scaffolding towers and sheets of plasterboard are being delivered to the workshop and then carried into the auditorium via the ramp and stage.

The first area to be dealt with is the ceiling. The existing fibreboard panels are to be removed, insulation is to be laid between the joints, and then a new ceiling of insulated plaster board panels erected and painted. This will greatly improve heat retention in the auditorium and help deaden sound slightly from the outside world. Nothing can be done at floor level until this work is completed.

Playhouse in national press...

You may have seen the article in the Gloucestershire Echo on Saturday 5 April concerning our refurbishment that suggested we were replacing our seats because “the audience is getting fatter”. It is true that people are bigger than they used to be – the Odeon cinema chain are installing seats that are 5cm wider than they were installing just 10 years ago – but that isn’t the actual reason for the refurbishment.

But, as someone once said, no publicity is bad publicity.

Shortly after this story appeared, someone told me they had spotted my quote about “fat people” – their words – in the paper. I informed them that I was not responsible for the Echo’s angle, and that I was not at all ‘fattist’. It then transpired that they hadn’t seen the Echo piece but that I had been quoted in The Sunday Telegraph under the heading “Theatre’s wider appeal”!

So, the Echo’s angle has resulted in The Playhouse being featured, possibly for the first time, in a national newspaper – which in turn resulted in my receiving a call from a professional company who hadn’t heard of us before and inquiring about staging something here in the future. I was very pleased. The Telegraph!

However, there is always a black cloud on the horizon. I learned this morning that I was also quoted in The Sun.

The return of Robin Shapero...

If you've spent any time walking up and down Bath Road or Oriel Road over the last nine months, you may well have stepped over Robin Shapero without giving him much thought. He's often been found in the town recently sprawled across the pavements. This isn't because he drinks excessively. He's actually installing the Floodwall, a brilliant system that he designed and is now being marketed throughout the UK from here in Cheltenham. Having been flooded twice last summer - for the first time in something like 30 years - there was concern over the wisdom in spending £250,000 on an auditorium refurbishment for all that good work to be washed away.

So, last autumn, Robin measured up all the doors along our Bath Road frontage, together with the airbricks and cellar hatch, and had a series of Floodwalls made for The Playhouse. And last week, having been a bit under the weather for a while, he and his colleague Pat turned up to start installing them. The system is surprisingly simple but very effective. A frame is fixed permanently in place around the bottom of a door and, should you fear the worst, you simply clip an aluminium panel with a fixed seal to the frame. In a matter of seconds, the building is protected. You can read more about the system at http://www.floodwall.net/

I think everyone involved with the theatre has been worried that we might end up with a river running through the complex again whenever there has been a heavy downpour - in which case, it would probably be cheaper to reopen as a swimming pool. Having the Floodwalls in situ is a considerable comfort.

One week to go...

The theatre was a hive of activity last week as work commenced both on the flood restoration programme and the preliminary stages of the much-anticipated auditorium refurbishment (which starts in earnest next Monday).

In terms of the damage caused by last summer’s floods, many rooms in the complex were left requiring some replastering and redecorating before we could consider replacing the flooring and carpets. The worst hit area was, fortunately, the least public part of the building - the cellar - which needs repairs to the wooden stairs, new rendering to the walls and a completely new ceiling. A team of builders arrived at 8 am Monday and achieved a great deal by close of play Friday. They will be on the premises for a few weeks yet and will need to dovetail the remainder of their tasks with the main refurbishment.

Ian Chandler (technical manager), George Whitford, and a few helpers have spent much of the week trashing rostra and properties from under the stage that were either water damaged or surplus to future requirements, as well as some preparatory work with regard to electrical cabling. The remainder of the properties stored under the auditorium will be removed next Sunday by a working party to enable the existing floor to be dismantled and replaced.