During the first few weeks of 2024 Cox’s Yard, the site which hosts The Attic Theatre was flooded several times. This caused extensive contamination and damage to the interior fixtures and fittings in the main Cox’s Yard restaurant and service area.
Why is the theatre closed if it is on the second floor?
Although The Attic was not directly damaged, the indirect consequences mean the site is having extensive refurbishment and repair work on-going for many months. This restricts access and more importantly, the areas used for audiences in the event of an evacuation, meaning shows cannot take place until the work by construction companies is completed. Part of the work will include corrections and repairs to damaged electrics within The Attic and Cafe side of the site, aimed at ensuring the extent of the site-wide issues are corrected before anything is operational again.
How long will the repair work take?
The estimate is that by mid-summer the work will be completed, hopefully allowing audiences back into the theatre in approximately July/August. This is provided there are no further floods; each time it floods the drying out process must begin again and this alone takes five weeks on this site
When do you hope to have shows back on?
Currently, we are working to July as a cautiously optimistic date to get back into The Attic but also putting out ‘feelers’ for potential other venues to host planned performances – we will let everyone know as soon as anything is confirmed so please keep watching
What is keeping you busy at the moment?
Our long awaited box office re-design and 2024/25 planning is keeping the whole team busy. After the amazing RBC students fundraised to repair the damaged signage after the break-in, the theatre went into full throttle delivery in 2023 and this break is the perfect opportunity to get it all looking wonderful and installed for visitors to see in the near future. As this break is moving some planned pieces we are looking to 2025 at the same time as this season and hopefully will be able to think ahead and give you more time to plan your adventures to us
We are gutted that the flooding has caused part of the season to be postponed and shows including our annual Shakespeares are not able to happen this year. Everyone wishes to thank the supporters and audiences for their constant positive messages and loyalty in the face of this unusual gap in programming. Looking forward we are making plans and getting ideas in order to plot the latter part of the years festivities and start shouting out about the wonderful performances we will open our doors to as soon as we can.