Reconstructing the Construction of the Royal Court

Abstract

In the autumn of 1995 the Royal Court Theatre received notice that it would be awarded funds from the National Lottery that would enable it to address the rapidly disintegrating state of its 107-year-old building. Almost forty years earlier the English Stage Company (ESC) had moved into the Royal Court, cognizant of the building’s inadequacies. During the intervening decades, management considered comprehensive plans to remedy the problems, as well as contemplated moving elsewhere, but never managed to raise the necessary funds to accomplish either objective. For forty years, makeshift solutions enabled the Royal Court to continue functioning without solving these problems. In 1994 the New York Times called the Royal Court (the company) the most important theatre in Europe the same week that, in London, The Times called the Royal Court (the building) “a dump.”Haworth Tompkins Architects and Theatre Projects Consultants, Royal Court Theatre Feasibility Study (London: n.p., 1995), 10.