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GERRY CORNER goes to Prescot and discovers Shakespeare, Johnny Vegas, Doddy, and a welcome extended to all
JUST AS YOU’D
ALL-INCLUSIVE: Shakespeare North. Visitors with a disabilityhave been impressed with the facilities
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T
HERE must surely have been those who thought the good burghers of Knowsley had lost their minds when they dipped into a dwindling pot to gamble £6m of taxpayers’ money on a Shakespearian theatre.
It could have felt like one last desperate spin of the roulette wheel for a town rooted in one of the country’s most deprived areas. Almost a decade had passed since the dream of recreating Prescot’s long-lost medieval playhouse, built around the time Romeo and Juliet was first performed, had collapsed with a failed Lottery bid in 2007. And while other cities put a new supermarket at the heart of regeneration attempts, Knowsley Council was pinning its hopes on cementing – quite literally – the town’s links with England’s greatest playwright. The local council’s decision in 2016 to spend millions reviving an enterprise only too vulnerable to snobbery and elitism, in a working-class town starved of jobs and resources, could have gone badly wrong. Instead, news of the revived project for Prescot was greeted with enthusiasm by locals desperate for something to lift their spirits. Besides which, the Shakespeare North Playhouse,
whose curtain lifted in July with a weekend of free festivities, was always intended to be the most democratic of spaces. Prescotians may have taken to the place: attending performances in numbers, volunteering their time, contributing to the fixtures and fittings, or just calling in for a coffee. But the message from those running the show is clear: whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever your circumstances, you are welcome here.
Special place
In the short time since the doors opened, the theatre has hosted everything from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, to shared reading sessions, heritage tours, spoken word nights, and an audience with Johnny Vegas. Creative director Laura Collier said: “Before we opened to the public this summer you could sense the energy of the theatre – it’s truly a special place. “We want to be bold, brave and inclusive, and celebrate different creative voices. We hope to make Shakespeare North an exciting place where people from all walks of life feel engaged and welcome.” On the site of a former car park, right in the centre of
town, the £38m venue inc style timber theatre outsid performances; an outdoo gallery; 60-seater studio t café and bar with outdoo The performance garde Dodd. Doddy played Yori and his widow, Lady Anne the tune of £700,000. Plans for the original, m were never found, so in c impressive modern exter faithful recreation of Lond Court theatre, with no scr with 60 tons of English oa Among those who have Beatles legend Paul McC Gordon Brown and Osca Dench, the latter saying s product. Laura added: “Our prog have a passion for theatr that theatre isn’t for them “Shakespeare North Pla space where everyone is
