Huddersfield’s Lawrence Batley Theatre and its exciting new autumn season

I take full advantage of the national platform to be as Northern-centric and Yorkshire-championing as I can be, which is why one of the five highlights I chose to talk about was Romeo and Juliet performed in the courtyard of Huddersfield’s Lawrence Batley Theatre by the irreverent theatre company Handlebards.

It was a little frustrating that the Government changed its lockdown rules for Kirklees the night before Romeo and Juliet opened, forcing the theatre to massively reduce its capacity for selling tickets to the event.

Henry Filloux-Bennett is the LBT’s chief executive and artistic director and the man who brought the show to town.

“Like so many other theatres across the country we were for a long time operating completely blind, trying to work out what might, or might not, be possible and when we might be able to start working again,” he says. “When we had to be part of a localised lockdown for several weeks in August it was incredibly difficult to deal with, but we are of the opinion that the show will and must go on, so whatever comes our way, we’ll deal with it.”

And so, for the second time in as many weeks, my lockdown theatre profiles venture to a theatre that is soon offering live events for audiences to see. Visit the website and you will see a host of different shows being offered up on the stage, starting last week with an evening of variety that invokes The Good Old Days, hosted by Huddersfield’s own drag star Miss Dameana. It’s a format that’s set to be repeated tomorrow night and Saturday, September 26.

Tonight highly regarded performance poet Luke Wright is bringing his show The Remains of Logan Dankworth to the theatre and next Thursday and Friday, September 24 and 25, Power, the story of a circus Strong Lady is brought to the stage in a one-woman show.

There is also a ghost walk, and a triple bill of work by Wayne McGregor, Northern Ballet and Gary Clarke all filmed in the empty theatre and screened to audience members on their chosen date. It’s another inventive theatrical solution to the problem of Covid lockdown.

“As the weeks and months passed, the question became more when we re-open, what will we be able to do? So we worked with the companies who were supposed to be visiting in the summer and autumn to make sure we had as exciting and compelling a season of work as possible, but with social distancing in place. We were never just going to go into hibernation – that’s not what we’re here for, so we just had to find a way to make it work,” says Filloux-Bennett.

The theatre chief is at pains to stress that the staff has worked with the council, with the visiting companies and hopes to work with audiences to ensure the safety of everyone using the building in the coming autumn season. It means a series of different and new steps when booking tickets, one way systems – it’s an impressive collection of measures.

“We are really lucky in that we have a completely reconfigurable theatre, so we’ve been able to make bespoke seating plans for each performance,” he says. “If you’re coming to the show, we literally have designed everything down to the seats, around you and your performance.”

One assumes there is a question over audiences and their confidence in returning to a theatre, but Filloux-Bennet is impressively optimistic.

“We have been here for over 25 years, we were made by our community, for our community. There’s no way that we would ever consider not creating work and not being here to support people, especially given the pressures, stress and uncertainty we’ve all been dealing with,” he says.

“Operationally the biggest challenges have been how can we make it safe in terms of customers coming in and out of the building, ordering drinks, using our toilet facilities, entering and exiting the auditorium – things that up until recently we’d all taken for granted, but now we have to think about every possible aspect of what we do.”

Filloux-Bennett has also, impressively, been producing his own work during lockdown. As the writer behind Toast, the hit play based on the autobiography of Nigel Slater, he has used lockdown time to write another play – which will be performed online as part of the season. Jonathan Coe’s satirical novel What a Carve Up! has been adapted by the artistic director and it is going to be directed by Tamara Harvey and produced between LBT, The Barn Theatre in Cirencester and the New Wolsey in Ipswich.

“It was on the list of plays I’d always wanted to adapt for the stage and thankfully Jonathan Coe was aware of my work, so said very kindly that I could work on What a Care Up! Given that theatres are still not able to open on a large scale, we thought we’d create an online version first and then hopefully the play may be staged at some point when things are back to something approaching normality.”

The remaining, burning question is: how? How is Filloux-Bennett managing to make all this while helming a theatre through the choppy waters of Covid?

“I don’t know. I don’t have weekends or days off or evenings off is basically how it works at the moment, but that’s the deal,” he says. “I’m absolutely committed to keeping going and coming out of the other side of the pandemic as strong as possible and if that means I sleep next year, then so be it.”

LBT’s Autumn season highlights include:

Studio Wayne McGregor, Northern Ballet and Gary Clarke Company unite in a triple bill titled Locked down. Locked in. But living. They present work in response to Covid and the lockdown. September 28 - October 18 online.

A Night at the Musicals: Starring West End performer Christina Modestou and featuring music from the likes of Cabaret, West Side Story, Funny Giri and We Will Rock You.

Shuddersfield: a ghost walk around the town taking in the spooky sights. October 28, 29.

For details see www.lbt.org.uk

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Thank you

James Mitchinson