Spa and Futurist are not in competition
HAS Scarborough Borough Council really got value for money from their consultants, Drivers Jonas, who conclude that the Spa and the Futurist compete for the same audience, when they used data that is six years old, prepared by a third party over which they, presumably, had no control and which, in any case, did not include family shows as a category? (Dossier: Theatre should be closed, Evening News, March 6).
To argue that the Futurist should be closed on the grounds that it competes with the same audience as the Spa does not stand up to common observation. When has the Spa Grand Hall ever staged a major opera, ballet or musical with costumes, stage settings and a live full-sized orchestra or shown a newly released film?
Admittedly the Spa Theatre has presented the Vienna Ballet but, because of the theatre's small size, the performers have to dance to recorded music rather than to an orchestra, making pauses for spontaneous audience applause impossible.
If evidence is required that there is no competition between the Spa and the Futurist it is to be found in Stroke-on-Trent, like Scarborough, a town that has developed a cultural quarter. Stoke's equivalent of the Futurist is the Regent Theatre that stages major productions including Glyndebourne Touring Opera while Stoke's equivalent of the Spa Grand Hall is the Victoria Hall which hosts both major concerts and conferences. To complete the similarity, the New Vic Theatre in the Round is Stoke's equivalent of the Stephen Joseph Theatre.
All three co-exist without, in any way, competing for their respective audiences. In addition the Queen's Theatre stages, amongst other things, many amateur productions, much as the Scarborough YMCA Theatre does.
Admittedly, Stoke-on-Trent is a larger conurbation than the Borough of Scarborough. However, Scarborough has a large population within a one-hour drive of the town and, of course, a major influx of tourists throughout the year which it needs to maintain and enlarge.
Scarborough should show that its enterprise status was not a mere flash in the pan by seizing the economic opportunities that the Futurist offers for locals and tourists alike and recognise that it should be an integral part of the town's cultural quarter.
Anne and Paul Bayliss
Esplanade
Scarborough
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Friday 25 May 2012
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