Somewhere to ponce about in

It’s been a month or two since I last wrote about Stratford’s ‘other theatre’.
So, just to remind you…
...there’s a very nice first floor building about a hundred yards from the RSC’S Jam Factory that’s been standing empty now for 3/4 years (maybe more…God doesn’t time pass when you're enjoying yourself). I remember how the building was well used in the daylight hours as a tourist-pulling waxworks (Elizabethan street scenes), then converted in a couple of hours to Stratford’s one and only cinema opening its doors when the darkness came and the children of the night roamed the poorly lit streets. It’s final transformation a few years ago was to be a restaurant (downstairs) and a very pleasant but rarely used theatre space upstairs. (Even though I once saw something quite boring performed there I can vouch enthusiastically for its effectiveness as a fantastic space for poncing about in). Anyway…to cut a long and sad story short, while the restaurant’s still in use the theatre space stands forever empty waiting for someone exceedingly rich to buy up its lease.
I have always supported the continued use of the space as theatrical and remember being horrified when some Stratford worthies wanted to put up the money to buy the long lease and transform the building upstairs into a milk bar (?) for Stratford’s calcium-starved young. That, thank God, does not appear to have come to pass, in fact, a week or two ago the sale of the lease came and went without any sign of the milk bar devils and no sign of anyone else either. As is the way of property for sale in good old S-on-A the asking price was way, way out of a normal mortal’s reach, so the space remains just that, a space. But wait, maybe all is not lost.
I was very pleased to see that a group representing Stratford Amateur (I hate that word) Theatre has got together to see what they can do. Power to their theatrical elbows although to be honest I can’t see them raising the two/three million that I believe is the asking price, so I have some advice, a bit of a long shot maybe but no matter, what have they got to lose.
Go, I say, go, cap in hand to see the rather wonderful Mr Felix Dennis (late of OZ magazine). He’s a local boy, is not short of a bob or two and I hear he’s very approachable. Just don't tell him I sent you.