Many of Britain’s finest actors, writers and directors have united in a campaign to save the country’s oldest working theatre from closure.

Dame Judi Dench, Dame Maggie Smith and Sir Derek Jacobi are among more than 120 signatories to a letter published in The Times today protesting at the plan to cease performances at the Bristol Old Vic for the next 18 months.

The theatre, opened in 1766, needs emergency repairs, rewiring and refurbishment. However, the signatories fear that plans to let the repaired building for weddings and conferences will kill off the resident Old Vic Theatre Company, which nurtured the careers of Peter O’Toole and Daniel Day-Lewis. They wrote: “What is clear is that the Bristol Old Vic Company is in danger of being allowed to fade away.”

Suspicions were aroused by the announcement in May that the theatre would close on August 1, forcing the cancellation of several planned productions, including Kenneth Branagh’s Ivanov. This prompted the resignation of the theatre’s artistic director, Simon Reade, who has yet to be replaced.

There are no plans for the company to tour or set up a temporary base during the £7 million refurbishment and no clear idea of what sort of shows it may put on in future, or how many.

Equity is demanding an investigation. Harry Landis, the union’s president, said: “We’re going to campaign long and hard to save the theatre.”

The actor Alan Rickman asked: “Would somebody please explain why I am receiving letters asking for money to preserve the fabric of a building which appears to have nothing happening in it?”

Officials at the theatre claim that the building was obliged to close for health and safety reasons and that they were now conducting “focus groups and consultations” to find out “what people want us to be”.

Its chairman, Rupert Rhymes, said that a £7 million refurbishment programme would transform it from a hazardous venue — notably faulty wiring — to a state-of-the-art auditorium.

He said that the theatre had struggled financially, with waning audiences. Up to 70 per cent of the 650 seats remained unsold for productions such as Cyrano de Bergerac. Reports suggest that standards suffered from trendy reworkings of classics and experimental work, as well as overspending on some productions. “People were not coming because they didn’t like what they were seeing and because the building was worn out,” Mr Rhymes said. “We have to refurbish the building and win back the audience.”

The actors say: “At the moment, all decisions appear to be in the hands of Arts Council officials and board members, few of whom seem ever to have worked on a stage.”

Malcolm Sinclair, the Olivier-nominated actor who trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, questioned how a theatre with no artistic director — and therefore no apparent artistic vision — could ask for funds. He said: “It takes a long time to build up an audience, but you can lose them in two or three productions. You can’t run a theatre through focus groups.”

A Vic spokeswoman confirmed that conferences and weddings were seen as the theatre’s future, to raise money. “Ten weddings in a year gives you £30,000. It’s the kind of thing we have to look to. We can’t appoint an artistic director until we’ve gone through focus groups and consultations and know what is wanted. Then we can advertise for someone who wants to do that job,” she said.

Old stager

— The Bristol Old Vic began in 1766, when a group of merchants, lawyers and politicians paid for an illegal theatre in the docks

— The great 18th-century actor David Garrick called it the most beautiful theatre in Europe.

— George III granted it a royal licence in 1778. It became the country’s first state-subsidised theatre in 1943 and gained its first resident company, an offshoot of London’s Old Vic, in 1946 – hence the name

Source: Bristol-old-vic.co.uk

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