Has Shakespeare North lived up to its expectations?

Dear readers — in 2022, six years after Knowsley Council gave planning permission for a new theatre, the Shakespeare North Playhouse opened its doors. The venue’s genesis was actually in 2007, when academics and theatre directors inspired by the upcoming Capital of Culture celebrations highlighted the Bard’s North-West links. 

But was the theatre – which cost £38 million to construct – a reasonable outlay, or an expensive white elephant that will never recoup its investments? 

“This year I’ve watched a brilliant revival of Shirley Valentine at the Everyman and a fantastic new production of Red or Dead at the Royal Court,” said one reader, who was rather less impressed with Shakespeare North’s offerings. “It would be great if The Post could take a balanced, objective look at how this project, that attracted vast sums of public money at a time of austerity for arts funding, has performed.”

Ever your dutiful servant, Laurence set off to Prescot to find out whether Shakespeare North is infinite in faculty or merely a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. 

That’s today’s Answers in The Post. But first – your Post briefing.

Editor’s note: To read this story in full, you’ll need to be a paying member of The Post. It costs just £7 a month and gives you access to our full back catalogue of long reads – including our award-winning investigations uncovering corruption in Merseyside. You’ll also be helping to support us in our mission to give the region a news outlet it can rely on, publishing high quality local journalism — without the clickbait. Click the button below to give a paid subscription a whirl.

Your Post briefing 

Halton Council could end up repaying £19 million to the government after it was granted exceptional support to stabilise its finances. Earlier this year, the council applied for a £10 million loan from the government after going £19 million over budget. The overspend was largely caused by the cost of employing temporary agency staff, and expensive residential placements for children. Due to the current rate of interest on the loan, Halton Council may have to repay up to £19 million to clear the debt.

Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt is calling for an "urgent re-examination" of Lucy Letby's case. The former nurse is serving 15 life sentences after she was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others between June 2015 and June 2016 at the Countess of Chester Hospital. However, since her trial doubts have been raised about her guilt, as well as the safety of her conviction. Currently, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) is considering evidence from an international panel of medics that claim poor medical care and natural causes were the real reasons for the deaths of the babies. Hunt has now asked the CCRC to "speed up their normally painfully slow process". 

And West Kirby artist Benjamin Stephenson has won the Liverpool Sculpture Prize. His cylindrical sculpture, named Laminae, was made using an ancient construction technique called rammed earth, and will be on display on a plinth outside Liverpool Parish Church for the next year. Stephenson said he was "ecstatic" that he had won the prize, and he was "grateful for the opportunity to create something rooted in the city's history and environment". Take a look at the sculpture below.

In today’s Answers in The Post, we’re digging into whether Prescot’s Shakespeare North Playhouse is producing enough bang for its buck. 

What is Shakespeare North?

The 470-seat theatre is a unique addition to Merseyside’s cultural scene for several reasons.

It’s the first brand-new, purpose-built theatre of its size constructed in the region since Southport Theatre in the 1970s. (The Floral Pavillion and the Everyman were, of course, knocked down and rebuilt in the late 2000s and early 2010s respectively.)

It’s also the only example outside of London of a “cockpit theatre” – a type of tiered-seating indoor playhouse. Historically, cockpits were literal cockfighting arenas converted into theatres, such as the Cockpit-in-Court Theatre in the Palace of Westminster, adapted for dramatic productions by Inigo Jones in 1629.

Cockpits offer a more intimate theatrical experience than open-air venues like the Globe Theatre on London’s South Bank. But much like the Globe, Shakespeare North is a reconstruction of what an Elizabethan or Jacobean theatre would’ve looked and felt like, with timber-framed stands and an elaborate frons scenae inspired by Jones’ design.

Funnily enough, Shakespeare North is just a few hundred feet away from Cockpit House, a 1776 townhouse built on the site of an old cockfighting pit – the now-illegal ‘sport’ was a popular attraction in Prescot that once drew gamblers from all over Lancashire. 

Is that why it was built in Prescot?

Prescot’s Shakespearean claims run deeper. At the turn of the 17^th century, Richard Harrington – a gentleman and tenant of Prescot Hall – built a playhouse in Prescot. The theatre may have only been in use for a few years, but it was the first purpose-built indoor theatre in Britain and the only Elizabethan theatre outside London.

The Prescot Playhouse hosted performances by several playing companies contemporary to Shakespeare, including the Lord Strange’s Men. This repertory group is known to have performed several of the Bard’s plays, and “if so, [Shakespeare] would almost certainly have supervised such performances" according to Knowsley’s former MP George Howarth. Shakespeare himself may even have been a member of the Lord Strange’s Men in the early 1590s.

A tentative lineage, perhaps, but the short-lived Prescot Playhouse was the impetus for the new theatre’s construction. In 2007, when the Shakespeare North Trust first applied for National Lottery funding, co-founder David Thacker – former artistic director of the Young Vic and the late Arthur Miller's favourite stage director – said: “We believe Shakespeare in the North needs a practical and symbolic representation; it's the only part of his history that is undeveloped."

How much has it cost?