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Jul
10
The New Southbank Centre
Filed Under Music Industry |
The London Arts world has a new palace.
It’s all too rare that something is so outstanding, so good, that you overflow with joy just by standing there and looking at it. But the new Southbank Centre is one of those things, and I haven’t even heard the new acoustics or been inside the hall yet.
The complex is completely revitalized; pretentious arty-farty types (like me) wander in their hundreds through vast swathes of concrete, grass and shiny things. Bunches of new cafes and restaurants and eating places and a bookshop and a music shop and weird and wonderful things like art installations made of soapboxes and multi-purpose spaces for informal (spontaneous? - now there’s an idea) recitals and a mini wind farm on the roof of the Purcell Room all jostle for space. Except they don’t, because there’s plenty of space. A whole new beautiful urban landscape has emerged.
The programming is deliciously enticing. No more same old same old reprogramming of guaranteed bum-on-seat symphonic blockbusters alone, but adventurous and eclectic programmes running the gamut of artforms from world music to chamber music to talks to dance to orchestral to vocal to rock to a million and one other things.
And the best thing of all? Loads of people. That’s what happens when you put on interesting new stuff, brand it and present it well, and surround it with attractive creature comforts. The buzz is incredible… this is a place where people want to be, to hang out, to think, to socialize, to create ideas, to talk, to listen, to experience things… this is an incredible success and, assuming the hall lives up to the reviews I’ve been reading (better… very good if not exceptional), I think it is the new heartland of UK arts. It raises the bar for places like the Barbican too. Wow.
There is one downside though. Somehow this all has to be paid for. Tickets prices and the cost of the nearby eatingplaces are very very steep. Whether the Southbank Centre manages to balance its new magnetic attraction to the aspirational middle class with an edgy, constant growth of its new-found eclecticism will be told only by time.