The Elephant and Castle is undeniably one of the most exotic names for a location in London and one ironically defined by a not so glamorous transport nexus; the Luftwaffe bombers in WW2 perhaps didn’t bomb the bejesus out of the area because they were using the roundabout as a point of orientation for the bombing of the nearby docks. There are conflicting ideas as to how this part of the London borough of Southwark came to be named, but we can trace its origins back to a coaching inn (and possibly a Cutler’s shop) which has the first documented use of the “E&C” from the late eighteenth century.

Our arts project, The Melodramatic Elephant in the Haunted Castle, will open up the archives and tap into residents experiences of the Coronet which after 145 years will be closing down as part of the regeneration of the shopping centre in the Elephant and Castle.

I have a dream of finding someone who is 90-100 years old and who remembers the building as a theatre in the 1920s. But we can certainly engage the succeeding generations who watched films at the ABC cinema (1932-1999) and who clubbed the night away at the Coronet (2003-2017). We look forward to using this as source material for the stage play and art exhibition that will be performed and mounted in November 2017.

Thank you, Southwark News for getting the ball under way and profiling our project: How The Elephant and Castle Theatre reinvented itself and influenced theatre culture on its journey to becoming the Coronet.

I have been sketching in and around the Coronet, documenting the quiet art deco features that survive inside and the hubbub in the streets outside. This building deserves to be turned inside out by an artist, very much like a poetic equivalence to all those hundreds of thousands who visit the venue every year; they arrive late in the evening and then, several hours later, stagger out onto the streets in the cold light of a new day – utterly transformed.

Our guiding muse is the Victorian actress, Marie Henderson, and I’ve been imagining her ghostly presence still interacting with the spaces of the building and hovering over the railway lines and high rise towers that are sprouting up in this area.

John Whelan has been reading melodramatic texts from the Victorian era and will soon be working with the People’s Company in generating ideas and images for the play and responding to my art work. I likewise will be inspired by their improvisations. All we need now is the good will of local people and for visitors to the venue to collaborate with us in creating art that goes back to the future.

www.elephantmelodrama.com


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