Battersea Arts Centre is the only theatre in London where you’ll find the artistic director greeting audiences while dandling his four-month-old daughter. The former town hall is still a civic space – people get married there – as well as a performance area, and David Jubb, the baby dandler, has determined to make every nook and cranny buzz with human and dramatic activity. Architects Haworth Tompkins were busy opening up the spaces and animating its corners when the building went up in flames a year ago.
Now the first new auditorium has been opened, in an open-air courtyard previously used by staff smokers and terminally ill pigeons. The musical troupe Little Bulb have long been identified with this theatre. They have been sleeping in the building while preparing Extravaganza Macabra, a light-of-heart, quick-on-its-feet show that spoofs Victorian melodrama with brass neck and brass instruments. One villain (handlebar moustache), played by swaggering Alexander Scott, who also appears as a cloth-bearded sou’westered fisherman. One hero, the mandolin-playing Dominic Conway, who pops into a mob cap and pinny to become Bertha the maid. One heroine, the soaring-voiced Clare Beresford, who impressively doubles as Chipper the chirpy cockney urchin, setting things right with the help of his faithful dog: “he’s called Dog-Dog. He’s a dog”.
The contents amount to little more than a sketch. The experience of the show is bigger than that. The Bulbs know how to light up an audience: they get them unembarrassedly to hiss, cheer, even sing. One woman is encouraged to bond with a rubber rat. Their task is made easier by this new arena. Inspired by the vibrantly interactive Teatro Oficina in São Paulo, it pushes the audience close to the action, with ox-blood iron galleries and benches only feet away from the stage. The very essence of BAC.
