Professor Guy Osborn, Professor in the Westminster Law School, and Dr Matthew Morrison, Senior Lecturer and Course Leader of Creative Writing BA courses at Westminster, were interviewed by The Soho Society for their ‘Soho Society Hour’ programme about the restoration of the Soho Poly, one of London’s most important post-war alternative theatre venues based in Westminster’s Lower Titchfield Street building.
Talking about the restoration of the theatre, Dr Morrison said: “We are trying to get this nice balance between the past history and what it stood for, its ethos, and how we can reinterpret that in the 21st century where the world is very different…the most significant way in which we are doing that is it was a lunchtime theatre in the 1970s and that opened the doors to a lot of people who couldn’t be involved in theatre…you could slip into these lunchtime theatres and watch a play for about an hour and it was part of your ordinary working day rather than being cordoned off in evening leisure time.”
He added: “One of our big ideas is we want to disrupt your everyday with arts and culture, so the Soho Poly going forward wants to have events in the morning, at lunchtime, mid-afternoon, early evening…to try and catch all sorts of people that feel culture is difficult to get to.”
Talking about the work the Soho Poly has done so far, Professor Guy Osborn added: “We have tried to pollinate the spirit of the Soho Poly and take it outside of the basement itself. In September we took over The Social for a night called PolySocial which was a night celebrating our history…When we talk about pollination, we are also really keen for people who come not just to be consumers, but to produce as well.”
Listen to the full interview on The Soho Society website.
Find out more about the Soho Poly and how you could contribute to its restoration.
