Public transit Brondesbury
Kilburn Years active 1980 –present Opened 1980 Architect Tim Foster | Rebuilt 1998 Capacity 235 Phone +44 20 7328 1000 | |
Owner Tricycle Theatre Company Ltd Address 269 Kilburn High Rd, London NW6 7JR, UK Similar Hampstead Theatre, Riverside Studios, Arcola Theatre, Almeida Theatre, Orange Tree Theatre Profiles |
Support the tricycle theatre
The Tricycle Theatre is located on Kilburn High Road in Kilburn in the London Borough of Brent, England. Since 1980, the Tricycle has been presenting a wide range of plays reflecting the cultural diversity of the area, as well as political works and verbatim reconstructions of public inquiries.
Contents
- Support the tricycle theatre
- Tricycle theatre short
- Wakefield Tricycle Company
- The building
- Artistic directors
- Productions
- Productions 20112016
- Productions 20062010
- Tribunal plays
- 2014 Jewish Film Festival funding
- References
The theatre has produced original work by playwrights such as Lynn Nottage, Patrick Barlow, Richard Bean, David Edgar, Stephen Jeffreys, Abi Morgan, Simon Stephens, Roy Williams, Lolita Chakrabarti, Moira Buffini, Alexi Kaye Campbell, Florian Zeller and Ayad Akhtar.
The current Artistic Director is Indhu Rubasingham, who succeeded Nicolas Kent in 2012.
Tricycle theatre short
Wakefield Tricycle Company
The Tricycle Theatre opened on the Kilburn High Road, London, in 1980 as the permanent home of the Wakefield Tricycle Company, a touring theatre company that was known for producing British premieres, new writing, children's shows and theatre for the community in London and the South East. The Wakefield Tricycle Company had been started in 1972 by Ken Chubb and Shirley Barrie, performing initially in a room behind the Pindar of Wakefield pub in King's Cross. The name 'Wakefield Tricycle Company' was adopted as a pun on the Wakefield Cycle of mystery plays, the pub's name and the fact that the initial company had three members.
The company commissioned new plays which it presented at arts centres around the country and then brought into small London theatres, such as The Bush and The King's Head. The Wakefield Tricycle produced over 60 plays including works by Sam Shepard, John Antrobus, Olwen Wymark and co-founder Shirley Barrie.
The building
After securing the support of Brent London Borough Council, the Greater London Council and Arts Council England, the company was given a lease and began converting the Foresters' Hall on the Kilburn High Road into what is now known as the Tricycle Theatre ('Wakefield' being dropped from the company's name at this point), opting for this space due to the lack of local entertainment facilities for the residents of Kilburn at the time. The Foresters' Hall, which was built for the Ancient Order of Foresters, had previously been used for various purposes, including as a cinema and as a music and dance hall and as temporary offices for Brent Housing Department and Rent Tribunal.
The 235-seat auditorium, designed by architect Tim Foster and theatre consultant Iain Mackintosh, was modelled on the Georgian Theatre Royal in Richmond, Yorkshire. It was built using free-standing system-scaffolding that supported padded benches rather than individual seats. The pre-existing proscenium arch was in front of a stage so shallow as to be almost useless, so a large apron was built to take the acting area out into 'the courtyard', leaving the old stage as almost a backstage area, frequently unused in Tricycle productions, but leaving the theatre with the oddity of a proscenium arch framing a small rear, inner acting area.
In 1987 the theatre suffered a devastating fire that spread from a neighbouring timber yard and which seriously damaged the building. However, after extensive fundraising, the theatre was rebuilt and reopened in 1989, with only minor alterations.
In 1998, a 300-seat cinema was added to the complex, and in 2001 the Creative Space was built for the theatre's extensive education and community work. All stages of the development were designed by Tim Foster Architects (now Foster Wilson Architects).
Artistic directors
In 1984 Ken Chubb turned the Tricycle over to artistic director Nicolas Kent, who had previously brought a successful production of Playboy of the West Indies, by Mustapha Matura, to the Tricycle with the Oxford Playhouse Company. Ken Chubb and Shirley Barrie returned shortly thereafter to their native Canada where they have continued working in theatre and education.
In 2012 the role of artistic director was taken over by Indhu Rubasingham.
Rubasingham opened her 2012 inaugural season with Red Velvet by Lolita Chakrabarti featuring Adrian Lester. The production received awards for Most Promising Playwright and Best Actor at the Evening Standard Award and Critics' Circle Theatre Awards. The play is based on the story of Ira Aldridge, the first black actor to play Othello on a London stage in 1833.
In 2013, Rubasingham directed Moira Buffini’s Handbagged, which transferred from the Tricycle to the Vaudeville Theatre in London's West End in 2014 and for which the Tricycle Theatre received an Olivier Award for ‘Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre’. Handbagged was nominated for an Olivier Award for ‘Best Comedy’ and went on National Tour in 2015.
Productions
Among the highpoints of the first 10 years were productions of Return to the Forbidden Planet, Just So (a musical based on the Rudyard Kipling children's stories) and productions by The Black Theatre Co-operative, Carib Theatre, Druid, Field Day, Foco Novo, Market Theatre of Johannesburg, National Theatre of Brent, Paines Plough, Shared Experience, Talawa Theatre Company and others.
Productions 2011 –2016
Productions 2006 –2010
"Tribunal plays"
From 1994, during the tenure of Nicolas Kent as Artistic Director, the Tricycle established a reputation for its distinctive "tribunal plays" based on verbatim reconstructions of public inquiries.
In 1994 the Tricycle produced Half the Picture by Richard Norton-Taylor and John McGrath (a dramatisation of the Scott Arms to Iraq Inquiry), which was the first play ever to be performed in the Houses of Parliament. This was the first of a series of plays that have subsequently become known as the Tricycle Tribunal Plays. The next, marking the 50th anniversary of the 1946 War Crimes Tribunal, was Nuremberg, which was followed by Srebrenica – the UN Rule 61 Hearings, which later transferred to the National Theatre and the Belfast Festival at Queen's.
In 1999, the Tricycle's reconstruction of The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry – The Colour of Justice received tremendous critical and public acclaim, The Guardian calling it "the most vital piece of theatre on the London stage". It went on to play for two weeks at Theatre Royal, Stratford East and transferred to the Victoria Palace in the West End. It completed a national tour in 1999 which included the Belfast Festival and the National Theatre.
In 2003 Justifying War – Scenes from the Hutton Inquiry opened at the Tricycle.
In 2004 the Tricycle produced Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom written by Victoria Brittain and Gillian Slovo from spoken evidence, which transferred to the New Ambassadors Theatre in the West End and the Culture Project in New York (where Archbishop Desmond Tutu appeared in the production). In 2006 the Tricycle presented a performance of the play at the Houses of Parliament and also on Washington's Capitol Hill. It has since been performed around the world. Through the "Guantanamo Reading Project" there have been 25 community productions of readings of the play in the United States.
Bloody Sunday: Scenes from the Saville Inquiry opened in 2005 and later transferred to Belfast, Derry and to the Abbey Theatre for the Dublin Theatre Festival. In 2006 the theatre was awarded an Evening Standard Special Drama Award for "pioneering political work", and a Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement for Bloody Sunday.
In 2007 Called to Account – the indictment of Tony Blair for the crime of aggression against Iraq – a hearing was staged at the Tricycle with evidence from American political lobbyist Richard Perle, the Chilean Ambassador to the United Nations Security Council in 2003, Juan Gabriel Valdes, and ex-Cabinet Minister Clare Short.
In 2010 Nicolas Kent, Indhu Rubasingham and the Tricycle theatre were awarded a Human Rights Award from Liberty for "their proud record of highlighting some of the most important human rights issues of the day" the award named several of the tribunal plays.
Most of these plays have been broadcast by the BBC on radio or television, and have together reached audiences of over 30 million people worldwide.
2014 Jewish Film Festival funding
In August 2014, the theatre informed the UK Jewish Film Festival (UKJFF) that it could not host the festival in 2014 (as it had done for the previous eight years) if the festival continued to pursue a £1400 grant it had sought from the Israeli Embassy in London. The theatre offered to make up the loss itself but the festival's chief executive director Stephen Margolis dismissed this offer as a "publicity stunt", saying that the Tricycle's artistic director Indhu Rubasingham had also demanded to scrutinise the list of films to be shown. The decision led to accusations of anti-semitism and The Jewish Chronicle described the decision as "open racism". Rubasingham drew attention to her own and the Tricycle's record, adding, "I am not anti-Semitic or anti-Israeli".
Nick Cohen, writing in The Spectator, accused the Tricycle of inconsistency, as other groups' or events' funding had not, he claimed, previously been examined in this way. Cohen also pointed out that the Tricycle itself accepted Arts Council funding during times that the UK was actively involved in military conflicts. In an editorial, The Guardian said that the Tricycle had made "a bad error of judgment". Sajid Javid, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport was reported as saying that the theatre had been "misguided" in demanding the festival drop its sponsorship by the Israeli Embassy.
Theatre directors Nicholas Hytner and Richard Eyre both supported the Tricycle's stance and deplored those who had misrepresented that position. Hytner also said "Rubasingham and the Tricycle board could not have made clearer their commitment to Jewish culture ... It is entirely understandable that they felt obliged to insist that no government agency should sponsor the festival. The Tricycle ... has a clear responsibility to make no statement about the dispute that is behind the current conflict. It greatly saddens me that the UKJFF have unwisely politicised a celebration of Jewish culture".
However, in a joint statement on 15 August, the UKJFF and Tricycle Theatre said: "Some weeks ago the UKJFF fell out, very publicly, with the Tricycle over a condition imposed by the Tricycle regarding funding. This provoked considerable public upset. Both organisations have come together to end that. Following lengthy discussions between the Tricycle and UKJFF, the Tricycle has now withdrawn its objection and invited back the UK Jewish Film Festival on the same terms as in previous years with no restrictions on funding from the Embassy of Israel in London." The 2014 festival did not take place at the theatre, but it was suggested that the Tricycle might hold some UKJFF-related events later in the year.
In May 2015 the Tricycle Theatre's chair, Jonathan Levy, issued an apology in a piece published in The Jewish Chronicle, saying that the theatre had taken the wrong decision when it had asked UKJFF to return to the Israeli Embassy the £1400 funding it had received and that it was now seeking ways to rebuild mutual trust with the Jewish community.