Devilishly good... Punchdrunk theatre, whose Faust was such a big hit, are to return to BAC. Photograph: Stephen Dobbie.
When back in January it was announced that Wandsworth council intended to withdraw annual funding of £100,000 to Battersea Arts Centre and raise the peppercorn rent to a mighty £270,000 per year, it looked as if it might be curtains for the south west London venue which has become one of British theatre's most influential centres for emerging artists.
But after a couple of uncertain months, there are at long last reasons to smile in SW11 with the announcement this afternoon of a deal reached with the council which will see Wandsworth giving BAC annual funding of £85,000 for the next two years and the transference of the Grade 11 listed building to an independent theatre preservation trust on a 999 year lease. Not only that, but the brilliant Punchdrunk is following up the success of Faust with a new piece for BAC - The Masque of the Red Death.
First things first: BAC has until March 2008 to set up the trust and raise the substantial sums of money necessary to fund the trust which will become entirely responsible for the upkeep of a building and all repairs necessary. It won't be easy, and BAC will need all the help it can get and build on the goodwill generated by its threatened closure to raise the £200,000 a year it will require. Raising sufficient funds for an endowment would be an ideal way to secure BAC's future.
So how has this change of heart on the part of the politicians come about? The answer is a great deal of hard behind-the-scenes negotiation, a grown-up refusal to bad mouth, and a recognition that there were points where the interests of BAC and the council were aligned. Over the years Wandsworth Council's main subsidy to BAC has been in the money it has poured into the upkeep of the building, and by taking over responsibility for the building via the trust, BAC is relieving Wandsworth of a Victorian building that the council perceived as a liability rather than an asset. The trust should be able to access funds via foundations and charitable organisations that would have been closed to the council.
So while news from elsewhere suggests that many cash-strapped councils across the country are - like Wandsworth - reconsidering their funding to local arts organisations (the Met in Bury is just the latest arts centre to see its funding slashed) it looks like happy ever after really is now a genuine possibility for BAC.
"The fight to keep BAC open and stabilise its future has unlocked a huge level of support for BAC and its policy of supporting artists, and now with the building trust we'll be able to unlock a different layer of support around the idea of public spaces. This magnificent Victorian building might have fallen into the private sector and instead now it will remain a public space that people can walk in off the street and enjoy," says BAC artistic director David Jubb.
Felicitously, it will be at BAC where Punchdrunk - whose Faust in Wapping has been the talk of the town - will premiere its next show in early September, running through into the New Year. Based on Edgar Allen Poe's creepy short story The Masque of the Red Death, about a mysterious plague that sweeps the land and the attempts of Prince Prospero and a thousand of his nobles to escape it by retreating to his castellated abbey for a masked ball, Punchdrunk's show will use the entire BAC building in a promenade piece (where audiences move through the theatre during the performance) that should show the building off in the best possible light and demonstrate its many creative possibilities.
The scratch development programme will continue throughout the residency and Punchdrunk's show is planned as the first of three years of projects engaged in a process of what David Jubb calls "improvisatory architecture" that will use the entire magnificent BAC building as a site-specific playground exploring the creative and playful possibilities of the space. Sounds good.
