RSC chief is wrong, say theatre knights

Royal Shakespeare Company » Prominent actors say director Adrian Noble's £100m plan to demolish Stratford theatre is folly

Two of Britain's foremost stage actors have condemned the Royal Shakespeare Company's plans to demolish its historic Stratford-upon-Avon theatre amid growing pressure for its beleaguered artistic director, Adrian Noble, to quit.

Sir Donald Sinden described proposals to replace the Grade II* listed Royal Shakespeare Theatre with a £100m "theatre village" as an "absolute disaster" and a "disgraceful" waste of public money, while Sir Michael Gambon branded it "preposterous".

The dual onslaught, which comes as MPs prepare to announce their backing for the controversial project, follows mounting calls for Mr Noble's resignation and speculation that he faces being unseated by the RSC board.

Cultural critic Sheridan Morley said Mr Noble should "go now", accusing him of bringing the RSC "to its knees" by breaking up the company's traditional ensemble structure and pursuing plans for what he called a "Shakespeareland theme park". Mr Morley, who said Mr Noble should be replaced by Kenneth Branagh, lambasted him for focusing on an expensive West End musical of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at a time when the RSC was severing ties with its London home at the Barbican. The first production in the capital outside the venue, The Winter's Tale, opens at the Roundhouse on Thursday.

Mr Morley's views were echoed by a prominent playwright with past connections to the RSC, who said he believed the director should resign before being pushed. Now Sir Donald Sinden, 78, whose last appearance in Stratford was as Othello in 1979, has added his voice to the protest, dismissing the Stratford plan as "an absolute disaster".

"There's nothing wrong with the theatre," he said. "This is a place where all my illustrious forebears, Olivier, Richardson, Gielgud and Peggy Ashcroft, have played without any trouble at all, and who's to say that the next RSC director won't want to do the reverse and change the building again? The thought that public money should be going towards this is disgraceful. It should be going to the under-privileged theatres across the rest of the country."

Sir Donald dismissed Mr Noble's argument that the rambling size of the existing theatre meant that people in cheaper seats were forced to sit so far away from the stage that they could barely make out the performers.

"You don't need small theatres, but bigger actors," he said. "The problem with many of today's actors is that they are so used to working on TV they have lost the art of projection. You need to 'will' yourself to the back of the theatre. Don't change the theatre – change the company."

Sir Michael Gambon, 61, who last appeared at the theatre in the mid-1980s, said of the plan: "It's preposterous. I can't imagine why it's necessary to knock the theatre down. Surely it's possible to change it. It's a beautiful building, and it looks wonderful by the River Avon. To spend £100m knocking it down is ridiculous. Someone ought to stop him [Mr Noble]."

Until recently, Mr Noble, 51, who has run the RSC for a decade, was widely regarded as one of its most successful directors. However, all that changed last May when he announced plans for the biggest shake-up in its 40-year history. His plans to demolish and rebuild the main Stratford theatre have infuriated such conservation groups as The 20th Century Society, local residents, who have formed a pressure group, Hoot (Hands Off Our Theatre), and the Henry Moore Institute. Mr Noble has also angered the unions by pulling the RSC out of the Barbican – a move that is set to cost at least 45 jobs.

An RSC spokesman said Mr Noble's departure was "not even a topic for discussion", adding: "A lot of people who have acted on that stage in the past have nostalgic memories of it, but if you ask people who are stuck on the balconies during performances what they think, it is a B-grade experience."