Video special: Good old days return to the new Leeds City Varieties

BY the time the curtains closed and the lights went down in late 2009 she was looking like a jaded old showgirl who could no longer do those high kicks and had frankly seen much better days many years ago. Well, she was 144 years old and hadn’t had a proper revamp since 1888.

Now, after a painstaking refurbishment led by top architects and contractors, craftsmen and engineers, Leeds City Varieties is set to lift her skirts and entertain another few generations. A much-loved Leeds building has been peeled back, refurbished with incredible attention to detail and given the kind of 21st-century facilities expected by audiences and artists alike. She is about to show off to the world how a great collaboration between technical and creative minds, a supportive council with vision and nerve, hardworking fundraisers and the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF)can together pull of a great job. As with all top-notch facelifts, she looks like herself only brighter, fresher – and definitely raring to go.

All concerned were giving themselves a well-earned pat on the back yesterday, enjoying the pleasurable task of showing off the results of a project that has cost £9.9m and been completed five months behind schedule due to problems with the fragile building that presented themselves along the way. Extra costs of £700,000 over the original budget were met by the council, which gave a total of £5.925m. The rest came from the HLF (£2.739m) and fundraising. About £400,000 remains to be found to pay the final bill and fundraising by the Friends of Leeds City Varieties continues.

The stand-out change to the exterior as you approach along narrow Swan Street, which runs between Land’s Lane and Briggate, is the glass lift shaft that runs up the outside of the building, bearing the famous name. At last the needs of everyone are accommodated – even if it did mean ripping out a staircase.

General manager Peter Sandeman, who’s been in charge of City Varieties for 23 years, is particularly proud of that lift, and can barely contain his glee as he conducts a top-down tour.

“I’ve been fundraising since I came into the job in 1988 to get the place refurbished, and it has taken this long. Along the way Ideal Standard in Hull gave me some new toilets, but the refurb took so long to happen that they were sold off in the end.”

When the digging started to house the lift shaft, an archaeologist was brought in to examine the building’s fabric below ground, and to sift for any possible artefacts. Sadly, no Roman roads were found but a few artefacts such as bottles, pots and tools did appear, and are now displayed in glass cases. A time capsule containing details of the refurbishment team, architectural drawings and artwork about the project made by local children has been buried beneath the floor of the stalls.

The attic where there used to be old bits and bats no-one wanted to throw out houses the plant for the new ventilation system (no more simply throwing the street doors open at the interval to circulate fresh air on a summer evening); the 467 Victorian-style seats (64 fewer than before) are wider and have more leg room; the stall seating is raked so people at the back can see better.

Original decorative plasterwork has been exposed on the front of the dress circle and the boxes have doors. There are more ladies’ loos, and when the Old Swan pub next door reopens as part of the building (but run by a separate commercial concern) in September, there will be more bar provision than before. The carpets and gold-fringed ruby red curtains are new, and ceiling and arch ornamentation has been picked out in gold leaf – some of it done by school children who in the future can bring their own children and point out their contribution to the proscenium arch. Original botanical ceiling artwork has been uncovered. Hitherto hidden ironwork balustrading has also been left exposed.

Notorious for its dingy dressing rooms and generally difficult, poky backstage facilities, the theatre has a new block housing green room, loos, showers and dressing rooms – one of them decorated with the maple veneer which used to cover the walls of the old dress circle bar (this was a condition of the planning permission).

What original detail could be preserved and reused has been lovingly buffed-up and given pride of place; whatever was beyond repair or not in keeping with the historical recreation of the music hall as she would have been around 1905, has been replaced with repro decorative features that match the era and style of building. Technicians’ work will be made easier with computerised systems for moving scenery.

Geoff Wright, construction manager for contractors BAM – which had previously refurbished Harrogate’s Royal Hall and Sheffield City Hall – says the Varieties presented the team with various unique challenges. “The building is long, tall and old, with a fire escape on one side and residential and business properties around it. It has a tiny street in front of it which had to be used to take everything out and bring everything in, and that street also had to be kept open to the public.” As with many such projects in the field of “sympathetic restoration” much of the outlay is unseen by the public – like that heavy plant in the roof space housed atop a concrete slab resting on a steel structure to ensure the ceiling below remains undisturbed. In all about 50 sub-contractors – mostly from Yorkshire – were used on the scheme.

Whereas before some of the audience went to shows at City Varieties in spite of the surroundings, now the beautifully restored and improved building gives an additional reason to look out for a show you might enjoy there. On the programme for the season up to January are a wide mix of shows, from Ken Dodd at the opening night charity gala on September 18 (sold out), to Roger McGuinn, Janis Ian, Rob Brydon, Jack Whitehall and Al Murray, as well as The Good Old Days (which will run a season twice a year), a Leeds International Film Festival horror marathon, and of course the traditional panto.

While the theatre was closed Robin Davies, who wrote its famous pantos for so many years, sadly died. It’s now been decided to update the format and introduce the “Rock and Roll Panto”, which this year will be Aladdin. The new style seems to mean that all actors will also play instruments and the show will be littered with classic songs. But we can probably expect the same bad jokes and custard pies.

It’s debatable whether the money could have been found had the whole process started when recession had taken hold. As it is, it’s just great to welcome back an old friend.

“It’s really very exciting to have reached the end of this project, and I think everyone will agree that the Music Hall really does look stunning,” says Coun Adam Ogilvie of Leeds City Council, who chairs the Grand Theatre Board which administers the Varieties. “It’s so important to us to have preserved this important historic building for the city, and I know that it will now continue to play host to the best in comedy, music and variety as it has done for so many years.”