Tempest hits open-air theatre

12:40pm Friday 27th June 2008

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Staging open-air shows in England is, as some joker said about second marriages, a triumph of hope over experience.

And what a triumph it is at Walthamstow’s famous amphitheatre, where “The Tempest” is on till Saturday. It’s a wonderful production, with all its magical potential realised in the leafy surroundings and an other-wordly feeling as the sun sinks behind trees. The setting lends itself to the bewilderment of ship-wrecked travellers exploring an enchanted isle.

There’s a properly monstrous Caliban, and a spritely Ariel who steps so lightly through the air that he seems to fly. Yet neither one loses the pathos of an imprisoned spirit longing for freedom. The lovers are sweet, the magician Prospero is regal, the comic characters are genuinely funny. Best of all, the weather is on their side this year: it’s a perfect, balmy evening’s entertainment (7.30pm, £7).

The amphitheatre was built in 1924 in the grounds of Walthamstow School for Girls, Church Hill: see http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/features/history/localhistory/display.var.2347367.0.five_decades_of_greek_dramas.php

The ‘architect’s plan’ was a slightly blurred postcard showing an amphitheatre in Greece. The builders, who created its perfect acoustics, were a bunch of unemployed men. (Compare that with the £3.5 million Waltham Forest council paid for a botched makeover of our central library that left it leaking, creaking and reeking with damp.)

For the past 50 years, the Greek Theatre Players have put on a different Shakespeare production at the amphitheatre every summer. Catch it while you can, as it will be closed next year during building work on the school. And keep your fingers crossed that this unique venue will reopen the following year.

Let’s hope, too, that it remains unique. This beautiful, quirky spot opens to the public for just two weeks a year, taking pot-luck on the weather. And in the English climate, that’s the best way to use it.

Yet Waltham Forest council plans, incredibly, to sink public money into building a second open-air theatre nearby.

The borough’s only purpose-built theatre, in Lloyd Park, is due to be demolished. Or, as described in a council meeting, Waltham Forest council hopes to “achieve” closure of the theatre. (Far be it from me to stop the council claiming anything as an “achievement”, when it has so few to its name, but closing a borough’s only theatre isn’t exactly up there with winning a Nobel Prize.)

Friends of Lloyd Park originally put in a lottery bid to refurbish the park. Unfortunately, with council involvement, destruction is high on the agenda. The plans will destroy Lloyd Park theatre, damaging the surrounding island (although it’s an officially protected Site of Special Scientific Interest) and leave us with just an open-air entertainment space. See you there for a midwinter celebration? No, I thought not.

But theatre-loving 15-year-olds Nicky and Lee Caulfield are among those determined to save Lloyd Park theatre. See www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/topstories/display.var.2337220.0.walthamstow_teenage_twins_in_bid_to_take_over_theatre.php and http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/wftheatre, or contact them at waltham-forest-theatre@hotmail.com.

Can the kids do it? Well, they’re already more successful than the council, having raised £6000 to refurbish their Leytonstone school theatre and won backing from actor and director Kevin Spacey. Waltham Forest council showers our money on consultants, but somehow we never have anything to show for it.

So the stage is set for a dramatic rescue bid. And if you ever hope to see a show in Waltham Forest without an umbrella, pray that it’s successful.