Address | Exchange Street Aylesbury United Kingdom |
---|---|
Type | Proscenium |
Capacity | 1,200 (3 levels) |
Construction | |
Opened | 2010 |
Construction cost | £47 million |
Architect | Norman Bragg for Aedas RHWL Arts Team |
Website | |
Official Box Office |
Aylesbury Waterside Theatre is a theatre in Aylesbury, England, presenting a range of West End and touring musicals and plays, along with performances of opera and ballet and a Christmas pantomime. [1]
In 2003, Aylesbury Vale District Council held a public consultation into plans for a new theatre to be built to replace the current Civic Centre Theatre. Norman Bragg for London based architects Aedas RHWL Arts Team was commissioned in 2007 to undertake detailed design work [2] with a ceremony to mark the commencement of building work held on 24 May of that year with Councillor Sue Polhill, Chairman of Aylesbury Vale District Council cutting a sod from the earth. [3] The building work was carried out by Hertfordshire-based Willmott Dixon. [4] [5]
On 18 February 2009 Ambassador Theatre Group was announced as the preferred management contractor for the new venue [4] with Joint Chief Executives Howard Panter and Rosemary Squire, OBE signing a 6-year management contract in January 2010. [6]
Aylesbury-raised actress Lynda Bellingham marked the completion of the highest part of the building work on 24 April 2009 with a traditional topping out ceremony. [7]
In a joint press release on 23 February 2010, Ambassador Theatre Group and Aylesbury Vale District Council announced that the theatre would open on 12 October 2010. [8] The first season went on sale on 23 March 2010 with Northern Ballet's Swan Lake set to be the first performance. [9]
The acoustic design, by Arup Acoustics, includes a CARMEN [10] electroacoustic enhancement system. This electronically adjusts the base acoustic (designed for speech and amplified events) to provide a more reverberant sound for symphonic and choral performances.
Aylesbury Waterside Theatre was officially opened on 12 October 2010 by Cilla Black. The launch was marked with an open air live event hosted by Jonathan Wilkes and Suzanne Shaw. Guests included David Suchet, Simon Callow, Ruby Wax, Susan Hampshire and Richard O'Brien. [11] Monty Python star and Spamalot writer Eric Idle sent a pre-recorded message to mark the occasion. [12]
At the time the theatre was given planning permission in 2006, it was expected to cost £25 million. When the contractor Willmott Dixon was appointed in 2008, the cost had risen to £35 million. By the time the theatre opened in 2010 the final cost had risen again, to £47 million. [13] Aylesbury Vale District Council (AVDC) appointed Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG) to manage the theatre. AVDC paid more than £192,000 in management fees to ATG from November 2010 to May 2011 and £350,000 in the first 12 months of operation. AVDC will also pay out £1.75 million towards running the Theatre over a five-year period. [14]
In 2010 AVDC paid the Ambassador Theatre Group £19,500 to hire Aylesbury's Waterside Theatre, which the council owns and pays its business rates, for the 2010 general election count. [15] Criticism of AVDC over the theatre in the local press led to AVDC councillors being banned from speaking to the local newspaper, the Bucks Herald, because of the way in which stories were being covered. [16]
In April 2012, ATG reported a profits rise of 164 per cent. The ATG made £2.3 million in 2009 which rose to £16.3 million in 2011, through the 39 venues it now operates. This led to calls from some local politicians for the subsidy from AVDC of £600,000 pa. to be reduced when the contract is renegotiated in 2014. [17]
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial county in South East England and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-east, Hertfordshire to the east, Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, and Oxfordshire to the west. The largest settlement is the city of Milton Keynes, and the county town is Aylesbury.
Aylesbury is the county town of Buckinghamshire, England. It is home to the Roald Dahl Children's Gallery and the Waterside Theatre. It is located in central Buckinghamshire, midway between High Wycombe and Milton Keynes.
Chesham is a market town and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, United Kingdom, 11 miles (18 km) south-east of the county town of Aylesbury, about 26 miles (42 km) north-west of central London, and part of the London commuter belt. It is in the Chess Valley, surrounded by farmland. The earliest records of Chesham as a settlement are from the second half of the 10th century, although there is archaeological evidence of people in this area from around 8000 BC. Henry III granted a royal charter for a weekly market in 1257.
Aston Clinton is a historic village and civil parish in the Vale of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, England. The village lies at the foot of the Chiltern Hills, between the Wendover and Aylesbury arms of the Grand Union Canal. Surrounding towns include Wendover to the south, Aylesbury to the west, and Tring to the east - across the nearby county border with Hertfordshire.
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Aylesbury Vale District Council was the council for the non-metropolitan district of Aylesbury Vale in Buckinghamshire, England, which existed as a local government area from 1974 to 2020. The council was elected every four years from 1973 until 2020. At the time of its abolition, the council had 59 councillors, elected from 33 wards.
University Hospital of Wales (UHW), also known as the Heath Hospital, is a 1,080-bed hospital in the Heath district of Cardiff, Wales. It is a teaching hospital of Cardiff University School of Medicine. Construction started in 1963, and the official opening took place in 1971. It was Europe's first fully integrated hospital and medical school, at a cost of £22 million. It is the third largest university hospital in the UK, and the largest hospital in Wales. The hospital was previously managed by Cardiff & Vale NHS Trust. In 2009 the Trust was dissolved and the hospital is now managed by Cardiff and Vale University Health Board.
The Senedd building, in Cardiff, houses the debating chamber and three committee rooms of the Senedd. The 5,308-square-metre (57,100 sq ft) Senedd building was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 1 March 2006, Saint David's Day, and the total cost was £69.6 million, which included £49.7 million in construction costs. The Senedd building is part of the Senedd estate that includes Tŷ Hywel and the Pierhead Building.
Aylesbury Vale Parkway railway station is a railway station serving villages northwest of Aylesbury, England. It also serves the Berryfields and Weedon Hill housing developments north of the town. The station and all trains serving it are operated by Chiltern Railways.
The architecture of Aylesbury, the county town of Buckinghamshire, reflects that which can be found in many small towns in England. The architecture contained in many of the country's great cities is well recorded and documented, as is that of the numerous great country houses. Frequently, the work is by one of England's more notable architects – Christopher Wren, John Vanbrugh, Robert Adam, William Kent or even Quinlan Terry. What is less well known is the local architecture in the market towns, often inspired by the work of the great master architects or architectural styles popular at the time. English merchants would often return from a visit to one of the nearby cities, or having seen a glimpse of one of the great country houses then require a replica of what they had seen. A local architect would then be employed to recreate it, within limited financial restraints. Sometimes the patron would merely draw an image of what he required and a builder would then interpret the requirements to the best of his often limited ability.
ATG Entertainment, formerly The Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG), is a major international live entertainment organisation headquartered in the United Kingdom, with offices in Woking, London, New York, Sydney, Mannheim and Cologne. ATG's key operations comprise three inter-related activities: venue ownership and management, ticketing and marketing operations, and show productions.
Trafalgar Theatre is a West End theatre in Whitehall, near Trafalgar Square, in the City of Westminster, London. The Grade II listed building was built in 1930 with interiors in the Art Deco style as the Whitehall Theatre; it regularly staged comedies and revues. It was converted into a television and radio studio in the 1990s, before returning to theatrical use in 2004 as Trafalgar Studios, the name it bore until 2020, with the auditorium converted to two studio spaces. It re-opened in 2021 following a major multi-million pound project to reinstate it to its original single-auditorium design.
Shanghai Tower is a 128-story, 632-meter-tall (2,073 ft) megatall skyscraper located in Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai. It is the tallest building in China and the world's third-tallest building by height to architectural top. It is the tallest and largest LEED Platinum certified building in the world since 2015. It had the world's fastest elevators at a top speed of 20.5 meters per second until 2017, when it was surpassed by the Guangzhou CTF Finance Center, with its top speed of 21 meters per second. Designed by the international design firm Gensler and owned by the Shanghai Municipal Government, it is the tallest of the world's first triple-adjacent supertall buildings in Pudong, the other two being the Jin Mao Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Center. Its tiered construction, designed for high energy efficiency, provides nine separate zones divided between office, retail and leisure use. The US-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat cites it as "one of the most sustainably advanced tall buildings in the world."
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The Library of Birmingham is a public library in Birmingham, England. It is situated on the west side of the city centre at Centenary Square, beside the Birmingham Rep and Baskerville House. Upon opening on 3 September 2013, it replaced Birmingham Central Library. The library, which is estimated to have cost £188.8 million, is viewed by the Birmingham City Council as a flagship project for the city's redevelopment. It has been described as the largest public library in the United Kingdom, the largest public cultural space in Europe, and the largest regional library in Europe. 2,414,860 visitors came to the library in 2014 making it the 10th most popular visitor attraction in the UK.
Buckingham Park is a suburban residential neighbourhood contiguous with the north-west edge of Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England. It is currently the location of major housing developments on two sites known originally as Weedon Hill and Berryfields. Buckingham Park is also the name of the civil parish, part of Aylesbury Vale District Authority. The neighbourhood is close to the River Thame.
Willmott Dixon is a British privately owned contracting, residential development and property support business.
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The Aylesbury Vale is a geographical region in Buckinghamshire, England, which is bounded by the City of Milton Keynes and West Northamptonshire to the north, Central Bedfordshire and the Borough of Dacorum (Hertfordshire) to the east, the Chiltern Hills to the south and South Oxfordshire to the west. It is named after Aylesbury, the county town of Buckinghamshire. Winslow and Buckingham are among the larger towns in the vale.
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