In 1906, the Hicks theatre in the West End of London opened. It was named after the writer of its opening show, a play by the impresario and actor Seymour Hicks. Two years later it changed its name to the Globe – but that went in 1994, when it was rechristened the Gielgud, partly to distinguish it from the new Shakespeare’s Globe on the south bank of the Thames. The Novello theatre nearby used to be known as the Strand, and before that, the Waldorf. The Harold Pinter theatre was once the Comedy theatre; the Dorfman the Cottesloe. In Manchester, the institution formerly known as the Cornerhouse is now called Home.
Arts Council England has lost a definite article and a preposition: it used to be called the Arts Council of England. The Scottish Arts Council became Creative Scotland. The National Art Collections Fund rebranded as the Art Fund. What began as the Orange became the Baileys and later the Women’s prize for fiction. The Samuel Johnson is now the Baillie Gifford prize for non-fiction. This week, the UK is celebrating the opening of the V&A Dundee – not the Victoria and Albert. No one says the “Royal” National Theatre any more. And the Tricycle in Kilburn, north-west London, a theatre with a rich and varied artistic history, has just become Kiln theatre.
The last change, however, has provoked outrage. The theatre’s founders, former artistic directors and various ex-board members recently wrote to the Guardian expressing their disapproval. A valuable legacy and history have been squandered, they argue. There have been demonstrations; there have been petitions.
The Tricycle itself was a name, though much beloved, that came about by a certain happenstance – it took its title from the Wakefield Tricycle Company, which once inhabited it, which was itself named after a pub that used to be called the Wakefield of Pindar (“tricycle” being a kind of pun on the Wakefield Cycle of mystery plays). Not everyone is obliged to applaud the name Kiln: many local people who have long treasured the place feel that the change has been made high-handedly and without community consultation. Some may feel “Kiln” sounds as if it has been devised during a brainstorming session with Siobhan Sharpe, the branding expert on the BBC’s self-referential comedy series W1A.
And yet there is something unedifying about the spectacle of an institution’s former leaders lining up to criticise the current incumbent. It is time for the Kiln theatre’s artistic director, Indhu Rubasingham, to be left alone to do her job – bringing great shows to what is, and has long been, one of London’s most vibrant local theatres. The Kiln ought to be judged by its output today. A change of name does not mean the past is being blotted out. It is still there – a great history that is now ready to be built on.
