Why the failed Broadway Theatre in Peterborough needs a new champion

Out of step or just out of focus? Pinocchio won't be on at
 the Broadway Theatre, Peterborough this Christmas..

Why the failed Broadway Theatre in Peterborough needs a champion and quickly.....
Julian Bray  reports:

The Broadway Theatre, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire is now sadly dark,  a toxic brand, no one in the theatrical business will touch it and as for its' property resale value, who wants a converted cinema and decor which is now some 10 years old - as is the stage sound and lighting equipment (but hopefully retains the little used cinema projector and the stage tracking  for the West End sized Big Cinema Screen) which will all need to be renewed, refurbished or replaced ?

Sounds harsh but that is precisely what any new purchaser would be buying, the value of the whole lot, could be as a cleared building site for a new faceless block of flats, but with the recession still in full swing who in their right mind would invest and would the Banks given their record and the recent theatre history be willing to put up the risk funding?

So where does that leave the owner City socialite Rinaldo Fasulo, who it is alleged paid a mere peppercorn for the Broadway Theatre, as it was a distress sale by the liquidators of Peter Boizots insolvent Mistvalley Company. The Mistvalley company then controlled the Great Northern Hotel, Miss Pears, Gastons Restaurant and Bar and the Broadway Theatre.  Posh was also within the empire, but to anyone who would listen, they had a weekly lecture from Mr Boizot that Barclays had disgracefully tied up £1 million of his funds, possibly buried under the centre of the pitch, which due to some ancient covenant cannot apparently ever be built on...

Boizot nearly first closed the Broadway Theatre down, just six weeks after it first opened, when a large London Theatre Group (Ambassadors) provided a frank but fair assessment of the slender profitability potential, as just a live theatrical venue.

The report however ignored the West End big screeen 16 channel surround sound cinema and the adjoining Gastons Restaurant, in all respects an up market London West End standard Pizza Express with an extended cocktail bar and a steak grill. Original wall artwork by the Italian designer/ artist Apprillo who designed all the orginal Pizza Express restaurants in London. Worth a fortune but now sadly painted over! It also had the best restaurant crew in the whole of Cambridgshire.

I became involved as a result of a chance meeting in Gastons. I had recently moved to Peterborough, I knew Boizot from London, back in the 1970's. I then owned a trendy restaurant / wine bar in the Fulham Road, Chelsea, Antonio Carlucchio was then a neighbour and pre television, a catering supplier of  prepared salads! Anthony Worroll-Thompson, a local working chef at Brinkleys Restaurant. Wozza at the time was madly in love with the owner of the nearby Bistro Vino, a rivals wife, no less. (read Wozzas' biography for the full story)   Boizots' Pizza Express, the third branch, was just over the road and one of our regular cheffy type meet-up venues.

Scrolling on the years, to the year 2000. I had moved and settled in Peterbrough. It soon became clear that all was not well with the Boizot Peterborough empire, but in the brief period I acted as a consultant to Peter Boizot, before the bailiffs attended his Kettners Restaurant in London, (which I just happened to be visiting); the first of the Harry Potter films was released.  I negotiated with Warner Brothers, a preview showing at the Broadway theatre/BIG SCREEN cinema, selling a whole huge shipping container load of popcorn, then stored in several store rooms (by then rapidly going out of date!) and totally selling out of all soft drinks, eighty gallons of cola and a van load of ice cream in the brief 20 minute interval we had deliberately put into the two hour plus long film.

Putting the air conditioning up three degrees, five minutes before the scheduled Interval also helped! Gastons achieved a turnover of  over £23,000 that week, so life was good, staff amazingly happy as they were on tips (they got the lot, as was customary) and commission - most had transferred from Boizots London restaurants- frankly before Harry Potter and the Broadway opening, they were not happy with the lack of London bustle and hustle in sleepy Peterborough as they put it. Harry Potter changed all that.

The money situation elsewhere in the Boizot commercial empire was however dire, suppliers demanded cash and for one performance of 'Deacon Blue' at the Broadway. I had to physically show the tour manager the money, in cash, all £8,000 of it in small notes before they would go on stage. Once satisfied we had the money, the manager said: "OK bank it and pay us by cheque as normal...." as the newly departed Broadway management has found, in the theatrical world  it is all based on trust and word-of-mouth, if the theatre, and we mean any theatre or venue, is indeed 'good for the money.'

So where does the Broadway Theatre go from here?  Ideally Mr Fasulo should now recognise that with a couple of well reported failures in this business under his corporate belt (he will contend that the latest failure was nothing to do with him, but he approved the lease!) and many thousands of Peterborians (some twice over) bilked over the payment for now worthless tickets at substantially premium prices - and very unlikely to get their money back(!),  he should perhaps morally now seriously consider cutting his landlord losses and putting something back in the City that has over time served him and Mrs Fasulo well.

It will not have escaped many that Mrs Fasulo is the Mayors new consort for the current term. A highly visible position. To avoid the hassle of good citizens constantly demanding the return of ticket money, every time the Mayor appears at a charity function over the coming year; the offloading of the Broadway Theatre toxic brand into the safe hands of PCC and Vivacity by Mr Fasulo, might be a very good and soundly based commercial move.. 

Failing that a Theatre Charitible Trust to run and sustain the theatre, the finances held at arms length and accordingly all visiting theatre productions guaranteed, they will in fact be fully paid, on time for their creative efforts.

The City of Peterborough is too important to be tied into any sort of serial failure and no matter how some council senior executives may turn a Nelsonian eye (the e-mails are arriving already) and contend it is nothing to do with them. In reality it is, as the Broadway publicity is intimately intertwined with the Key Theatre printed programme and other PCC endorsed literature.

If the PCC can effortlessly purchase the 'Posh' perpetually waterlogged football pitch, (Barry you did tell them?) then it can easily invest in some city centre based culture at the same time, yards away from City Hall and a substantial theatre for touring productions, Olympic screened events, Conference Centre, Opera, Concerts and I bet the last operators didn't know that Peter Boizot had not only invested in a rising stage section for a mightly Wurlitzer (never installed) but also the first twenty five rows of seats on a level floor  pan can be swiftly removed to recreate a Last Night of the Proms promenade or accomodate tables for a dinner cabaret theatre show .....still not many people knew that...perhaps now they never will...I could be wrong of course Cllr. Marco Cereste is a businessman as well as Leader of the Council, he will see the value of this for the benefit of the City and the power of governance the PCC can bestow...



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