Ten Years by the Lake in Cumbria

A delightful  little theatre book has just come my way about a place I’ve never visited but which has thrived on the shores of Derwentwater in the Lake District these past ten years.

It’s called Encore! and it’s a history of the Theatre by the Lake written by David Ward, formerly a Guardian arts correspondent and even more formerly my head boy at a Catholic grammar school in North London.

So it would be quite nice to take revenge on his authoritarian ascendancy over me and say that the book stinks. But it doesn’t. It smells lovely.

And it highlights just what really does go on in our national theatre outside of the media-saturated metropolis of West End openings and the subsidised behemoths.

Nothing has been changed by the Theatre on the Lake except the lives of those who took part in its creation and continuation.

It therefore did the main job, picking up on the contemporary repertoire of Ayckbourn and Pinter, operating on an ensemble basis and pleasing its customers, who have always felt involved.

None more so than David Ward. He describes, hilariously, his role as a corpse in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound, trying not to move, sneeze or fart for the seventy minutes duration.

In these days of corporate funding and marketing targets, we hear far too little of what impels people to get involved in theatre in the first place.

RSC head honcho Michael Boyd is really on to something in his passionate interest in the amateur theatre; places like Theatre on the Lake are bridging that gap between amateurs and professionals already, and they are lifeblood organisations.

And who wouldn’t want to see a play by a lake, as in Chekhov’s The Seagull? It’s all part of the charm of outdoor venues like Regent’s Park, the Minack in Porthcurno, Kilworth House in Leicestershire.

I hope the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon renews its place in the locality, and by the river…I’m sure it will.

But as work progresses, on schedule, one worries a bit about the preponderance of glass frontage on Waterside which starts making the place look like a John Lewis mega store. Not enough brick for my taste.

There was no holding Michael Boyd, though, as he eulogized the new building at the RSC Press conference yesterday: “It is fantastic inside; everything I’ve been talking about since I became artistic director. I stood on the stage this week and saw all the niggles I’ve ever had with the Courtyard – which I love – melt away.”

And then, a very big claim: “It’s going to be the best theatre in the world – especially for Shakespeare.”

We shall see. But Boyd seems buoyant, an unusual state for him, as he too often strikes one as Rip van Winkle clearing the matter from his eyes after a good deep sleep.

Let’s hope his new theatre by the river will be as great a lift to the spirits as the Theatre by the Lake has been for David Ward and his friends this past decade.