HL Deb 11 March 1969 vol 300 cc332-49

2.55 p.m.

BARONESS PHILLIPS

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The National Theatre Act of 1949 limited to £1 million the Government contribution towards the cost of building the National Theatre. The purpose of the present Bill is to increase the limit on the Government's contribution from £1 million to £3,750,000. This measure is of great significance in the history of the arts in Great Britain and marks a final stage in the realisation of a dream first voiced as long ago as 1848 by a London publisher named Effingham Wilson.

I was very touched when the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, mentioned in our recent debate on the Arts that he had first written about this subject when he was still at Eton in reply to a letter from his mother. He had asked her at the time how the project was getting on. I think he mentioned that it was just after the Crimean War! It seems appropriate, therefore, to spend a few minutes in sketching the history of the project up to the present time.

Plans for a National Theatre were first formulated in a book written by Harley Granville Barker and William Archer in 1903, and it is interesting to recall that in 1906 Winston Churchill made the following comment: Think with what excitement and interest this people witnesses the construction or launching of a Dreadnought! What a pity it is that some measure of that interest cannot be turned in the direction of the launching say, of a National Theatre! The Dreadnoughts continued to be constructed and launched. To-day we are present at the final launching of the National Theatre and now look forward to its construction. In 1908 the Shakespeare Memorial Committee, which had been set up a few years earlier to plan a memorial in time for the Shakespeare Tercentenary in 1916, combined with another Committee concerned with the Granville Barker-William Archer scheme for a National Theatre to be transferred to national ownership and placed by some form of endowment above the necessity of constant and immediate profit making". This new body became known as the Shakespeare Memorial National Theatre Committee.

In May, 1909, Sir Carl Meyer made a gift of £70,000 to the movement for the general purposes of the scheme and Lord Avebury and the right honourable Alfred Lyttleton, P.C. (father of the present Lord Chandos), were appointed trustees of this sum and of the sums of the movement generally. In 1914 a site was purchased in Gower Street, Bloomsbury, for the sum of £60,000. This purchase used up most of the available funds and before there had been any opportunity of collecting further money the war intervened. In 1922 the Gower Street site was sold for £52,000 because, owing to the effects of the 1914 war, the scheme had become impracticable. Up to 1925 some assistance was given to what is now the Royal Shakespeare Company, but on being registered as a charity the Shakespeare Memorial National Theatre Trust was prevented from applying any part of its proceeds other than to objects which would lead directly to the achievement of the main objective, namely, the building of a National Theatre.

In 1937, further money having been collected, the Shakespeare Memorial Trust acquired for about £81,000 freehold some land on the South side of Cromwell Gardens, South Kensington, opposite the Victoria and Albert Museum, as a site for the National Theatre and plans were commissioned from Sir Edwin Lutyens. On Aptil 22, 1938, there was a ceremony, which I am sure your Lordships will recall, at which Lord Broughshane asked Sir Robert Vansittart to hand over to George Bernard Shaw, a Trustee of the National Theatre Executive Committee, the deeds of that site, together with turf and twigs as traditional symbols of the possession of land. As I pass the site each day, I wonder what has happened to the turf and twigs.

Any further work was halted by the 1939–45 war, but in 1946 an agreement was reached between the Shakespeare Memorial Trust and the London County Council, under which the Council agreed to grant a long lease of just under 1¼ acres of land on the South Bank, between the Festival Hall and Waterloo Bridge, in exchange for the South Kensington site. At the time when the exchange was agreed, the Joint Council representing the Old Vic and the Shakespeare Memorial National Theatre was formed.

In 1949 the National Theatre Act was passed, under which the Government were empowered to contribute up to £1 million towards the building and equipment of the theatre, but the date of implementation was left to the discretion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Plans for a building had been commissioned by the Joint Council from an architect named Brian O'Rourke, and in 1949 it was expected that a building based on those plans could have been erected for £l million. The Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of the National Theatre Act of 1949 was Sir Stafford Cripps.

In 1951 a foundation stone was laid by Her Majesty the Queen (now Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother) on the site adjacent to the Festival Hall. In 1952 it was agreed with the London County Council that the National Theatre should occupy a better site adjoining County Hall. The next step was taken in 1960, when the Royal Shakespeare Company was invited to join the Joint Council of the National Theatre and a proposal was made for the virtual amalgamation of the Old Vic and the Royal Shakespeare Company into a National Theatre, consisting of an amphitheatre and proscenium theatre under one roof on the South Bank and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford. This proposal was not accepted. The Royal Shakespeare Theatre withdrew from the National Theatre project, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day, Mr. Selwyn Lloyd, said that he was ready to consider a scheme which would include the rehousing of Sadler's Wells in an Opera House under the same roof as the National Theatre, and in the autumn of 1961 Sadler's Wells joined the Joint Council.

In 1962 the National Theatre Board was appointed by the Chancellor and an agreement was reached with the Governors of the Old Vic, whereby the Old Vic Theatre became the temporary home of the National Theatre Company. In August, 1962, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Reginald Maudling, reached agreement with Sir Isaac Hayward, the Leader of the London County Council, on the formation of the South Bank Theatre and Opera House Board to plan and build the National Theatre and the new Opera House on two adjoining South Bank sites. From the terms of reference it will be seen that the capital sums available to the Board were not to exceed £2.3 million in all, made up of £1 million to be contributed by the Government under the terms of the 1949 Act, and up to £1.3 million from the London County Council who were also contributing the site under the arrangement made in 1946. The Board appointed, in November, 1963, Mr. Denys Lasdun as architect for both the Opera House and the National Theatre. A building committee was set up by the National Theatre Board and accepted by the South Bank Board as its theatre panel to advise on the draft specifications.

In 1965 sketch plans were produced for an Opera House and a National Theatre at an estimated total cost of £16 million. In July, 1965, the Board and the Greater London Council were told that in view of the great increase in cost, the Government would not be prepared to contribute towards the cost of the Opera House, but would be prepared, subject to the approval of Parliament, to share the cost of the National Theatre with the Greater London Council up to a maximum contribution of £3,750,000. The Greater London Council decided in 1966 that they would not be prepared to undertake at their expense the building of the Opera House which was therefore abandoned, but agreed to provide a sum of £3,750,000 to match the contribution of the Government.

Work has since proceeded on the preparation of detailed plans for the Theatre, and the South Bank Theatre Board (the name was changed after the abandonment of the Opera House) hope to invite tenders in the spring of 1969 with a view to work starting as soon as possible. Until tenders are received and a contract is awarded, it is difficult to make a precise estimate of the date of completion but the hope is that the work will be complete by the end of 1973. The noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe—to whom I am sure your Lordships would like to pay great tribute for his work—the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, and Sir Laurence Olivier continue to be members, and the Arts Council were formally associated with the Board through the appointment of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and Sir Joseph Lockwood.

The overriding difference between 1949 and to-day is that we now have a National Theatre Company. Parliament was asked in 1949 to vote money for a building although no National Theatre Company was in existence: the Old Vic Company to whom all honour is due, had continued to work through the war and returned in 1950 to the renovated Old Vic Theatre. To-day we are asking Parliament to vote money for a building to house a company which, under the inspiring leadership of Sir Laurence Olivier, has in the five years of its existence built up a truly international reputation. Although the drama critics were not united in their assessment of the company's achievements at the end of its first five years, the quality of acting and production was not generally in question. Some criticisms have been made about the choice of plays. In fact, the National Theatre's aim has been to cover world drama by presenting plays equally in six categories—Shakespeare, English classics, foreign classics, contemporary English plays, contemporary foreign plays and recent plays of merit that deserve revival. One-sixth of their productions have been Shakespeare, but they have fallen short in the number of new works presented, both English and foreign, the reason being lack of suitable plays of quality.

This reputation has been achieved in such a short period, despite the very real difficulties under which the company have had to work in the existing Old Vic Theatre. This theatre was not designed for the presentation of full scale repertory at the high standard expected of a National Theatre Company. It is lacking in the necessary technical amenities. There is an inadequate lighting system and switchboard, insufficient wing space on stage, insufficient rehearsal rooms and storage space for only two or three productions. Dressing-room conditions are primitive and inadequate for the number of the company required to play in London, in the regions and abroad. From a number of the seats in the theatre, it is impossible to see the stage properly. The public cloakrooms, bars and foyer spaces are both cramped and uncomfortable. Finally, the number of seats, even allowing for those where the vision is inadequate, is not much more than 800. This low capacity, coupled with the high drawing power of the National Theatre Company, has led to many complaints on the part of the public that they are unable to obtain seats. Some of your Lordships mentioned this during the recent debate.

The new National Theatre building will have two auditoria, one of the proscenium type seating 900 people and one of the open stage type, seating 1,165 people. The total seating capacity of the theatre will therefore be over 2,000. The two auditoria are considered necessary by the National Theatre Company, in order to present plays of a wide variety which a National Theatre must include within its repertoire, within the type of auditorium most suited to those plays. In general terms, it can be said that the more intimate type of production will be staged in the proscenium auditorium and the more spectacular production within the open stage type auditorium. But the important point is that the existence of the two will give producers scope for producing plays in different ways.

The National Theatre is a joint project with the Greater London Council, The brief history that I have sketched of the National Theatre project indicates that the London County Council were involved from an early stage. They and their successor, the Greater London Council, have contributed £271,400 to the National Theatre Company since it was established in 1963. In the same period, Arts Council grants to the National Theatre Company have totalled £1,094,000, which includes the sum of £160,000 towards the reduction of accumulated deficits.

The Greater London Council will be contributing to the cost of the National Theatre exactly the same sum as the Government. They will also be providing free of charge the valuable site next to Waterloo Bridge. The South Bank Theatre Board will thus have available the total sum of £7½ million, together with the monies, amounting to £100,000, remaining from the Shakespeare Memorial Trust, of which they are now the sole Trustees. My Lords, I should like to pay a warm tribute to the Greater London Council, which under its present title, and prior to that as the London County Council, has been an enlightened and generous patron of the Arts. Special mention should be made of Sir Isaac Hayward, who perhaps more than anyone else has been responsible for the far-sighted concept of turning the South Bank into a glittering centre of the Arts. The noble Lord, Lord Fiske, throughout his period of office as leader of the majority Party on the Greater London Council, gave this project his full backing, and his successor, Mr. Desmond Plummer, has been equally wholehearted in his determination to see the National Theatre become a reality.

The Bill I commend to your Lordships is essentially a non-Party measure. This was so in 1949, when one of the speakers in the debate in another place was Lord Chandos, then a Member of that House and now a very distinguished Member of this House, whose family has been associated with the project for over half a century and who is, I am glad to say, still at the centre as Chairman of the National Theatre Board and as a member of the South Bank Theatre Board. This is equally true of the Greater London Council, which is represented on the South Bank Theatre Board not only by Mr. Plummer and Mr. Freeman, the Chairman of the General Purposes Committee, but also by the Labour leader, Sir Reginald Goodwin.

My Lords, the plans are nearing completion, and new hope has been given to the National Theatre Company, which has worked under such very difficult conditions. And perhaps I may again quote the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, who said previously in this House: It will be a great day for those who have worked for a National Theatre when the thunder of the bulldozers is heard on the site for the first time."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26/2/69, col. 1118.] I hope, my Lords, that we are to-day moving a stage nearer to this, and I commend the Bill to the House.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Baroness Phillips.)

3.13 p.m.

LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD

My Lords, may I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, for giving us such an interesting speech describing the history and all the details of this great project of the National Theatre? This was a far fuller history than I had ever heard before, and I must say that for myself I found it fascinating; I am sure your Lordships did as well. As the noble Baroness has told us, this Bill provides half the capital and the G.L.C. provide the other half, and I should like to offer my congratulations both to the Government and to the G.L.C. As the noble Baroness has said, this is a non-Party event. It is a national project which is going to be for the good of all. For my noble friend Lord Chandos it is, I feel, an occasion of great personal triumph which can be exceeded only when the building is completed and opens for its first show, I hope in 1973, as the noble Baroness has told us.

As my noble friend explained to your Lordships in the Arts debate a fortnight ago, he has been working for this end, man and boy, all his life; and I most warmly congratulate him on his inspiration and tenacity. I am bound to say that, like the noble Baroness, I was surprised at my noble friend's revelation about the connection with the Crimean War, and I am looking forward to having some further light thrown on this by Lord Raglan later on, as to "the reason why". When succeeding generations in later centuries ask the question, "What sort of people were they in the second half of the 20th century?", they will undoubtedly observe the London scene and record as a credit to this era that the National Theatre was built then; and my noble friend is indeed leaving his worthy mark on posterity.

London already has the finest range of theatres in the world, and I am certain that the establishment of a National Theatre here will install the central jewel in our theatrical diadem. I believe that this large expenditure of public funds is justified, both for the value of its enrichment of our national life and for the added attraction which it will make to foreign visitors to London. When the Theatre is opened I believe that the leadership of my noble friend Lord Chandos and the direction of Sir Laurence Olivier will ensure that the standard of performance comes up to our highest expectations. As the noble Baroness has told us, the finances of the Theatre are underpinned by substantial grants from the Arts Council—£340,000 this year—and, to a lesser extent, by the G.L.C. I understand that at present the subsidy runs at the rate of approximately £1 for £1 on the box office takings, and obviously top priority will be given in the future to providing the National Theatre with the grants it needs to keep going at the standard we should expect.

I would make just this point. Welcome as the National Theatre will be in its new home, the provision of this large sum of public money for its building cannot be considered without raising the question of its impact on the commercial theatre of London, which is also our concern. With 100 per cent. of the capital cost and 50 per cent. of the running costs found from public funds, we are bound to ask: is the National Theatre going to put on a programme which will undercut the commercial theatre and weaken its viability? I am sure that both the noble Baroness and my noble friend Lord Chandos would regret that as much as I should. Indeed, it would be defeating the broad aim of the whole policy of the Arts Council to strengthen the theatre in our national life.

I understand that the view is held in the National Theatre that, by adding to the range of theatrical attraction in London, the new National Theatre will strengthen the position of the commercial theatre rather than weaken it; and I recognise that the National Theatre's role will be to put on a repertoire of plays—indeed, the noble Baroness told us so—which would not necessarily, and could not necessarily, be put on by a commercial theatre. I hope that the National Theatre is right and that its establishment will strengthen the commercial theatre, but at this stage I think it would be fair to say that nobody can be sure, and it would certainly be fair to observe that the building of the National Theatre raises an anxiety in this field, if for no other reason than that it can sell its tickets at half the price of cost, whereas the commercial theatre must not only recover cost but must also pay taxes and earn something for its promoters as well.

On this matter I have a point to raise with the noble Baroness of which I have given her notice. Your Lordships may remember that in the Arts debate I inquired how the committee of inquiry on this particular topic of the commercial theatre in London and the Provinces was going, and it was not then possible for the noble Baroness or the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, to give me an answer. In those circumstances, I was surprised to read in this month's Socialist Commentary, published a few days after our debate, an article by Sir William Emrys Williams, the Chairman of the Arts Council committee of inquiry on the theatre, giving his solution of the financial difficulties of the commercial theatre in London and the Provinces. I may say, in passing, that I thought it was an interesting article and that its solution seemed to be both imaginative and practical. It also seemed not dissimilar to the scheme which I outlined to the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, in the Arts debate. I mention it now, first, to ask whether this article is an outline of what the Arts Council are going to propose for the commercial theatre; and, secondly, if that is so, to suggest that it would have been better to make its publication through the official channels of the Arts Council so that it could have been available to your Lordships for the debate that we had on the Report of the Arts Council. I mention this point merely in passing. I do not wish to make too much of it.

My Lords, this is an occasion for celebration and congratulation. I conclude by congratulating the Government on bringing this Bill before Parliament and by offering my noble friend Lord Chandos and his board my warmest good wishes for every good fortune, both in the building of the National Theatre and in its future operation.

3.22 p.m.

LORD HENLEY

My Lords, your Lordships are to hear from the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos and the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, who have been closely connected with this venture for many years; so I do not wish to say anything very much, except to welcome this Bill, which is non-controversial, on behalf of noble Lords on these Benches. I think that in this matter the Government deserve a great deal of credit, both for what was done in 1949 (although £1 million did not turn out to be quite enough) and for what is being done now. I do not think that any other Government has done quite so much in this respect as the Government of 1949 and of to-day. I should also like to add my congratulations to all the people who have been congratulated and also to mention two who have not been mentioned so far. I refer to the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and to the right honourable Miss Jennie Lee, both of whom have soldiered valiantly in this connection.

It has been suggested that there is an analogy with the National Gallery: that if you want a National Gallery (and who in these days would not want to have one?) you must want a National Theatre, too; that if we do not go on and bring this scheme to fruition now we shall become a laughing stock. Indeed, I am not sure that to some extent we have not already become a laughing stock. Your Lordships have already heard the long, sad story of how the idea was first put forward more than a hundred years ago, and of how for the last seventy years we have been talking about this and never getting anything done. The noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, thought the account that the noble Baroness gave was a fascinating one. It was indeed a fascinating one; but it was also a very sad and unfortunate one. I think it points to one of the sicknesses of our society that we can thoughtlessly and recklessly put money forward for the most expensive projects, costing thousands of millions of pounds, which then have to be abandoned—projects which I think a little more imagination would have made it apparent from the beginning would have to be abandoned. Yet we are congratulating ourselves on at last being able to find £3¾ million from the Exchequer towards a National Theatre. And that sum is to be spread over the next four years, so that it is a tiny amount compared with what we are prepared to put forward for projects like the Concorde.

My Lords, I think that I have seen certainly 75 per cent., and probably rather more, of all the productions that have been presented at the Old Vic in the last five years. How splendid it is that we have this basis now to build on! In 1949, when the Government first put forward the £1 million contribution, there was not even that basis to the degree that we have it now. Nevertheless, I think it is right that the money should be spent on the building itself. The noble Baroness has told us how inadequate is the present building of the Old Vic, with its 875 seats—I think that is the number. The new building will have two auditorias and will hold 2,000 people: it will be able to form a national school, and a national "everything else". The company will also be able to embark on touring to a much greater extent than before. However, this Bill is not about touring, which is a different subject altogether. If we are able to tour, we must think of other means of finding the money for the theatres that the National Theatre Company is going to tour to. But this is another problem.

The noble Lord, Lord Nugent, asked what sort of impact this is going to have on the commercial theatre. He said that the information available to him from his friends in the theatre was that it would have nothing but a beneficial effect. I concur. This is the impression I get. Nevertheless, I think that the future of the theatre is in the hands of national and civic authorities and that the provincial private enterprise theatres are in many cases dead or dying. The City of London have made a handsome contribution towards the new Barbican Theatre. It is now up to the Government, the Exchequer and the Greater London Council to see that they do not fall down here and that we shall not be saying five years hence that we still have not got a National Theatre and that we need to double the amount of money required to build one. I congratulate the Government on what they have done and I hope that all goes through successfully.

3.28 p.m.

VISCOUNT CHANDOS

My Lords, I threw all the confetti that I had in my bag during the debate on the Arts Council grant, but I should like to take the opportunity of throwing a little more confetti in thanking the noble Baroness for her charming speech and for unfolding this extraordinary piece of history to your Lordships. I only hope that the impression will not be got abroad that it takes 45 years to get a new idea into the heads of the British people, as it has taken on this occasion. I have only two things to say. First, the only alteration I make in the speech of the noble Baroness or in that of my noble friend is to alter the word "non-Party" to "all-Party"; because I think particularly of Sir Isaac Hayward—and it really has been Mr. Glenville Hall, Mr. Selwyn Lloyd and Sir Isaac Hayward; it really has been an all-Party job. I hope it will come out well.

There is one thing about the question of the impact on the commercial theatre which is worth saying, and I hope it is correct. I think it would be impossible for a playwright intending to make his living by writing plays to have a cast with more than one set and more than two stars. This is an outrage on all the artistic stands. It is like going to Rembrandt, asking him to paint a portrait of your wife and adding, "You must not use cobalt blue at all because it is too expensive ". The reason for the decline in the commercial theatre is that to put on a play like Julius Caesar, for instance, would be beyond the capacity of any private impressario unless he had his eye on immediate bankruptcy and an eventual knighthood. That is the only way to do it. We have to fill this gap if the great classical dramas are to be allowed to continue. I will not detain your Lordships. You have heard me too much on this subject. I conclude by once again congratulating the Government and expressing my gratitude to them.

3.29 p.m.

LORD COTTESLOE

My Lords, this Bill, which we have to thank Miss Jennie Lee for introducing into another place and Lady Phillips for introducing so fully and clearly into your Lordships' House, is certainly an all-Party measure, and I hope and believe that it is entirely a non-controversial one. But perhaps I may be allowed, as the Chairman of the Board that has to build the theatre and to spend the money which this Bill enables the Government to provide towards its cost, to welcome it most warmly and gratefully. Perhaps also I may give your Lordships a little of the more recent background to it, although I cannot claim that my own concern with the National Theatre goes back like that of my noble friend, Lord Chandos, for forty years.

Despite all the talk, for over a century or more, about the National Theatre, it was not until 1962, as the noble Baroness has told us, that the Government of the day decided finally to take the plunge. In that year they set up two Boards; the National Theatre Board, with the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos as Chairman, for the purpose of forming and managing a National Theatre Company, and the South Bank Theatre and Opera House Board, to design and build a National Theatre and a new Opera House for Sadler's Wells—a Board of which I was appointed Chairman. Let me say at once that those two Boards have worked throughout in the closest cooperation and harmony. I need not enlarge to your Lordships on the superb success of the National Theatre Company, under the brilliant direction of that great actor, and I think even greater man, Sir Laurence Olivier. Lord Chandos and his Board have created a company which is certainly unsurpassed and which I believe to be unrivalled anywhere in the world; an organisation of which, as a nation, we may be immensely proud.

But this splendid company has to do its work in the Old Vic, a theatre with a great history; a theatre for which most of us have a very real affection but, as the noble Baroness has said, one that is entirely inadequate for the productions and purposes of the National Theatre Company. The task of the South Bank Theatre Board is to provide that company with a setting that will match its fine qualities.

The establishment of the South Bank Theatre Board (we may leave out the opera house which, alas! fell by the wayside) was typically English. In no other country in the world would a Board be set up by the Government to design and build a National Theatre with no funds at its disposal—not a penny; with a Board dependent on two paymasters, the Government and the London County Council, each of which required to approve everything at every stage. No wonder it has taken a little time to bring the designs to the point of going to tender! The miracle is that they have reached that point at all.

My Lords, the first thing the Board had to do was to choose an architect and to provide him with his brief. We were very fortunate in being able to persuade Sir Robert Matthew, at that time President of the R.I.B.A. and formerly Architect to the London County Council at the time when they built the Royal Festival Hall, a man familiar with all the problems of the South Bank Development, to act as chairman of a small selection committee. The members of the committee included the noble Lord, Lord Holford; Mr. Norman Marshall, a distinguished producer; Mr. John Piper, an artist who has done a great deal of work for the theatre, and Mr. Bennet, the Architect to the L.C.C. These five gentlemen, to whom the public owe a debt of gratitude for their very considerable labours, reduced a list of 120 mines of architects and architectural firms to a short list of 20. Those 20 were interviewed for three solid days by the selection committee, reinforced by theatrical experts, on the one hand, and by operatic experts, on the other—a party numbering altogether about 15.

It was an experience that was exhilarating, even if it was a little exhausting. We had before us all the best architectural talent in this country. We had the German solution to the problem of theatre design expounded to us by a distinguished German architect. We listened to an eminent American architect who had flown the Atlantic to spend half an hour with us. At the end of three days it transpired that this posse of 15 architectural and theatrical experts—none of whom, it is almost true to say, thought the same about anything under the sun—had all independently, without discussion and without exception, come to the same conclusion. They all agreed that Mr. Denys Lasdun was the best architect to choose for this assignment. About any second choice there would have been the most bitter dissension, but about this name there was complete and spontaneous unanimity, which was a miracle. I can explain it only by saying that it was a direct intervention of Providence.

The architect then had to hammer out a brief for the theatre itself with a large and heterogeneous committee of actors, producers and designers under the joint chairmanship of Sir Laurence Olivier and Mr. Norman Marshall. It was a time when ideas about auditoriums were in a state of flux—arenas, open stages, theatres in the round, and all the rest of it. Few of the experts really knew what sort of a theatre they wanted; and again it would be almost true to say that no two of them wanted the same thing. But the architect worked with this committee for some months, exploring their ideas and explaining to them the possibilities and the limitations. Then there occurred a second miracle. He produced a design for an auditorium which had not only the approval, but the unanimous approval, of Sir Laurence and his committee.

I think, my Lords, that it is the recollection of those two interventions of Providence that has sustained and fortified the South Bank Theatre Board in the belief that the National Theatre is destined to be built. It sustained them, and their architect, too, through all the maddening frustrations and delays that they have had to face. There was the refusal of the Government, for reasons very easily understood, to go forward with the first grand design for the theatre and opera house of which Mr. Lasdun's beautiful model was on view in this building three years ago. This design would have produced an architectural group in London second only to the glorious group at Greenwich. There was the change of site to the Princes Meadow opposite Somerset House, a change that, although it was a source of some delay, had the very substantial compensating advantage of providing a better and a rather easier site on which to place a free-standing single building. There was the frustration of the cheeseparing change made by our paymasters at a late stage, from a cost limit of £7½ million at tender stage to a cost limit of £7½ million at completion, which is a very different thing; a change that necessitated abandoning the important small experimental theatre that should be an intrinsic part of the scheme and the scaling down of the whole building.

However, notwithstanding these vexatious frustrations and delays, and others too, here we are at last with the design for an altogether worthy setting for the National Theatre Company to work in; a design incorporating, as the noble Baroness has said, an arena type theatre seating about 1,165, with an open stage, and a conventional type theatre to seat 900 with a proscenium arch. These two theatres will be housed in a splendid architectural concept on a superb riverside site and there is the expectation of going to tender next month. To finance this great work we have an undertaking from the G.L.C. to find up to a half of £7½ million and now, at long last, if this Bill has the approval of your Lordships, as I am perfectly certain it will the Government empowered to find the other half. It has been a long struggle and a hard one, and it is not yet over, because we have to see what the tenders look like, but we may hope to see bulldozers at work on the site opposite Somerset House this summer and the National Theatre Company playing in its new home at the beginning of 1973.

3.42 p.m.

BARONESS PHILLIPS

My Lords, I should like to thank your Lordships for the warm and generous welcome which has been given to this Bill. I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Henley, included in his speech congratulations to my right honourable friend Miss Jennie Lee and to the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, for his most interesting account, bringing the history of the National Theatre up to date. I liked his description of experts as a "posse"—I have always wondered how one could adequately describe them. I am happy that he feels that the Almighty is on his side. It certainly seems that at last we are moving forward.

I read the article to which the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, referred and I take his point. I gather that the question being considered is one of the type of commercial theatre and that already some of the ideas put forward have been the subjects of interim reports to the Arts Council. But I am bound to say that I feel with him that there might have been a more tactful way for us to learn first of this. Nevertheless, the Committee of Inquiry is still looking into the matter.

With all noble Lords who have spoken, particularly the last two, who have contributed their work and their thought to the National Theatre, I feel that this is an occasion of happy celebration. Dare I suggest that the opening of the theatre may perhaps be at an earlier date than forecast? Perhaps the Almighty will even assist the workers to move forward a little faster. I commend the Bill to your Lordships for Second Reading.

On Question, Bill read 2ª: Committee negatived.