Theatre Royal: Entertaining a Nation; Summerlee Museum Of Industrial Life, 11/10/12.
Theatre, prior to the invention of television, was once a lucrative area to be involved in, Graeme Smith tells a modest crowd at Summerlee. To illustrate this, he apprises us of a performer on £2,000 a week at a time when making £2 was considered lucky - at first gasps bubble up around the room, but upon taking a further moment to consider this, you realise it's not such changed days after all. Just a shift in culture.
We listen intently as Theatre Royal's former secretary & financial director relays to us the architectural, financial and performance history of the place, his many memories lifting the curtain on not only a wondrous yet scarcely imaginable past (particularly as he tells us about circuses that took place there), but also how profound his feelings towards it are. The story of the theatre's near closure and the irony of television being its saviour while others completely fell from profitability is neatly punctuated with reminiscences and photos of a selection of the names which made - and continue to make - it such a popular place.
Smith is a frank and interesting speaker, and upon receipt of questions at the end, makes no bones of his distaste for the strictly business interests of ATG in the theatre these days. But he too seems proud of its association with the fantastic Scottish Opera & Scottish Ballet, and indeed that it's still around at all.
Glasgow's Theatre Royal More Encounters
