Theatre management should go

BECTU has called for managers at Leicester Haymarket Theatre to resign.

The call came after union efforts to keep the theatre open through negotiations with management met stiff resistance. Meetings between the company and BECTU have taken place following an announcement on May 20 that the theatre would close to the public, ostensibly for year, making 76 staff redundant.

Management blamed the move on the need to tackle a £450,000 deficit, and indicated that the Arts Council of England and Leicester City Council backed the plan.

However, BECTU supervisory official Willy Donaghy pointed out that the size of the deficit is almost identical to management's overestimate of budgeted box office income for the last financial year.

A theatre spokesperson said that the theatre had budgeted for a box office income from main house productions of £1,351,799 but the actual result was £897,227 - a shortfall of over £450,000.

Staff attribute this shortfall to a series of poor artistic and financial decisions. "Ironically, the plan for the closure involves retaining the very people responsible for the theatre ending up in this mess, while the loyal and dedicated staff are made jobless," said Donaghy.

At the same time the union is questioning the motives of the Arts Council which, rather than fighting to keep the theatre open, appears determined to have it closed.

Union members are sceptical that once closed, the theatre will ever reopen. A new theatre is planned to open in 2006 on another site in Leicester but there are doubts that this theatre will ever be built, turning Leicester into a cultural desert.

BECTU is calling on Leicester MPs and councillors to defend the jewel in Leicester's artistic crown. In a letter to the three Leicester MPs, BECTU Assistant General Secretary Gerry Morrissey said: "Neither East Midlands Arts nor local management have made any attempt to consult with us as the recognised trade union in relation to this decision, which they have almost certainly been discussing for some weeks, if not months, even to the point that management issued a press release advising of the closure before we had been told."