Connaught Theatre

Selected by

Charmian Adams, Film and TV Art Director

Charmian was architecturally trained up to and including Intermediate Royal Institute of British Architects at Brighton College of Arts and Crafts. Before graduating Charmian wrote to the BBC and got a job, and after graduating spent the next few years there learning her craft. When she left to start a family she kept herself busy by taking an Open University Degree in Soviet Politics and Economics, but managed to fit in small jobs, and as her then husband was in the business she was kept in the loop about work. A former colleague invited her to handle some work for BBC Bristol, and from there she ultimately got a job as an assistant art director on the film Sid and Nancy. Her career has not stopped since then. Her TV work as art director has included Downton Abbey, Only Fools and Horses, Cranford and McMafia. Meantime her film work has included My Cousin Rachel, A Street Cat Named Bob, My Week with Marilyn and Nowhere Boy, acting as Supervising Art Director on the most recent work. Her love of the book of Les Miserables meant she was ideally suited to working on the 2018 BBC production, filmed in Belgium and France, where the famous barricade scenes meant covering up shop fronts and streets signs with false buildings, and even included importing fully grown hedges from England. The chairs at the barricade were made of rubber, so they could be thrown again and again - and the hedges were safely returned to England when filmed ceased!
Location

Union Place, Worthing BN11 1LG

01903 206206

www.wtm.uk
Architecture

Peter Dulvey Stonham, refurbished 1933 to the plans for A.T.W. Goldsmith
The Connaught Theatre is a Streamline Moderne- style theatre and cinema in the centre of Worthing, in West Sussex, England. Built as the Picturedrome cinema in 1914, the venue was extended in 1935 and became the new home of the Connaught Theatre which had been established nearby in 1931.

Originally designed by Eastbourne architect Peter Dulvey Stonham, the building was refurbished in 1933 to the plans of A.T. Goldsmith. His design added a new first-floor cocktail bar and lounge area to the original Picturedrome auditorium. Two years later, the entrance foyer on Union Place was rebuilt in Moderne style, with two rendered storeys, parapeted, in three bays.

A temporary closure during World War II was followed by a period in which the theatre was managed by a group associated with the J. Arthur Rank Organisation, who pursued a policy of employing young actors who later became important figures in film, television and theatre. Glenda Jackson, Susannah York and several others appeared at the theatre during this period. Others who have trodden the boards at Worthing include Patricia Routledge, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Ian Holm, June Whitfield, Roger Moore and David Suchet, while writers such as Sir Alan Ayckbourn, Harold Pinter and Ray Cooney all learned their craft at Worthing. To this day many continue to return to the theatre with their work.

Since 1987, it has been a dual use cinema/theatre with two screens, and has a seating capacity of 512, under the name Worthing Connaught Theatre & Studio.
Interesting facts

The Connaught was a rare example of a conversion from a cinema to a theatre: the reverse was much more common in 1930s Britain, when many theatres became cinemas.
Harold Pinter appeared at the Connaught under the stage name David Baron, moving to a house just a few yards from the theatre in Ambrose Place in the 1960s. Pinter’s first wife, actress Vivien Merchant also acted at the Connaught during this period. A blue heritage plaque was erected to his memory in Ambrose Place in 2009.
Resources

www.wtm.uk/visit/wtmstory/history-of-the-connaught/

The Connaught Theatre today ©wtm

I grew up in the seaside town of Worthing in Sussex. At the time it was a town with one of the highest average age and proportion of people living off unearned income. So for a teenager in the ‘50s it wasn’t the most exciting place to be. We had the sea and its pier and 4 cinemas. La Casita was the chosen coffee bar; tennis courts could be hired, and outdoor bowling greens could be ignored as only for the elderly.

But we had the Connaught Theatre with its repertory company.

The interior of the Connaught ©wtm

I think we were probably about 15 years old when my best friend Liz and I started going there. And we went there every week for years to come. This had nothing to do with out parents or our school. It was just for us. It was our own idea. It was our private enthusiasm. It became our world and it would become the beginning of my future career – and Liz’s too. Me ending up in TV/Film Design: Liz with her love of words as a writer.

The Connaught Theatre set me on my path.

The Connaught Theatre in the 1950s ©wtm

Until I was asked to write this I never realised that the Connaught was originally designed, in 1914, as a cinema and was only converted into a theatre in the 1930s. This included its wonderful classic Art Deco exterior.

After leaving school I attended Brighton College of Arts and Crafts. Specifically its architecture course which happened to include, in the third year, a design project for a stage production.

I had continued to regularly go to the theatre. I had the Theatre Royal, Brighton, nearly opposite the art school, and London a short train ride away.

The Connaught Theatre in the 1950s ©wtm

It was in London that I saw Sean Kenny’s work. He designed, for example, A Man for All Seasons and Mary Stuart. His designs were, as far as I could judge, radically different. I wrote to him when I was in my third year asking if I could come and work for him! I can’t imagine how busy he must have been at the time – but he answered my letter, writing ‘get that piece of paper in your hand’ meaning, finish the academic year and get the RIBA Intermediate – then to re-contact him.

Somehow I found out that he had worked in the BBC Design Department at TV Centre, London. So I wrote to them and got an interview with the then head of design – duly travelling up with my mother and my portfolio. I really wanted someone to guide me as to what or where I should do/go next. Instead I was offered a job. Not a holiday job – but a proper full-time job. I was so very lucky.

And that was the start of my career. All started because, as a teenager I had easy access to theatre.

I loved the Connaught Theatre and everything it stood for. It opened up a path to a career I didn’t know existed.

I will always be grateful to it and its local Art deco architect, A.T.W Goldsmith.

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