Barbican hits back at RSC's outgoing boss

John Tusa, the managing director of the Barbican, has broken his silence over the Royal Shakespeare Company's controversial decision to move out of the London theatre with a barbed assault on its outgoing artistic director, Adrian Noble.

Speaking exclusively to The Independent on Sunday, Mr Tusa accused Mr Noble of rejecting every approach by the Barbican to collaborate creatively with the company.

And he said that, far from being prepared to even discuss his own artistic goals, Mr Noble was determined to avoid having "any relationship at all" with the venue.

Mr Tusa's candid remarks come in the wake of a more veiled attack on the RSC in the Barbican's latest annual report, published last week. In his assessment of the past financial year, Mr Tusa cites the lengthy negotiations over the company's decision to sever its links with the venue as "the largest burden" on his management, and accuses it of leaving him facing "huge financial risk at the box office".

Mr Tusa told the IoS that he believed the RSC's decision had been motivated by a mistaken belief that the Barbican wanted to "control" it.

"We have major artistic collaborations with a large number of companies and it is only, I'm afraid, the RSC who interpreted this as a greater degree of control.

"The offer is perfectly clear: we want to form collaborations with the companies that come here, but Adrian would never give it."

Mr Tusa said that relations with the RSC first became frayed when, buoyed by the success of its recent forays into international theatre, the Barbican broached the idea of producing more work in partnership with the company.

However, it became clear that Mr Noble did not want to collaborate "at any level".

Asked if any other members of the RSC hierarchy had obstructed the Barbican's endeavours to form a creative partnership with the company, Mr Tusa said: "Absolutely not. It was very personal to Adrian." However, he said he wished Mr Noble's successor, Michael Boyd, "all the best", adding: "A new page has been turned and we look forward to a new relationship."

Mr Tusa said that the RSC had paid the Barbican "an agreed sum", believed to be more than £1m, in lieu of the outstanding five years on its 25-year lease. He also confirmed that, despite having moved its staff out of the venue, the company would be returning, "rent-free", for between six and 10 weeks a year.

Mr Tusa's criticisms have been lent extra weight by the views of the Barbican's artistic director, Graham Sheffield, who used his section of the annual report to confirm that the RSC had taken a "unilateral" decision to part company with the venue.

The attack on Mr Noble comes at the end of an annus horribilis for the 51-year-old director, who has been repeatedly pilloried since announcing proposals to branch out into London's West End.

An RSC spokesman described the decision to leave the Barbican as "a painful divorce", adding in Mr Noble's defence: "It was Adrian who negotiated a relationship whereby we can continue to work with the Barbican.

"It's very important for us to keep the Barbican as one of the options for venues we can perform in in London."