Theatre Hullabaloo

Theatre Hullabaloo is a charity that believes that creativity should be part of everybody’s childhood. They make, tour and promote theatre for young audiences because they believe they are the most important audience of all. The organisation puts the young person at the heart of the creative process, working closely with specialist creative teams and embedding young people’s contributions at every stage of the artistic process. Their venue, The Hullabaloo, is also the meeting point for artists, educators and researchers with children as creative collaborators, to generate new creative ideas for pioneering art or national policy into the role of the arts in childhood. 

The organisation has been operating since 1979. In 2019 (after the capital works were completed and before the Covid-19 pandemic took effect) annual turnover was £452,000 and the charity was employing on average seven members of staff a month.

Project facts 

Client: Theatre Hullabaloo

Location: Darlington

Design team:

• Architects – SPACE Architects 
• Main contractors (including quantity surveyors) – Willmott Dixon
• Principal designer – Todd Milburn Partnership
• Structural engineering - Billinghurst George & Partners
• Mechanical and engineering – Cundall, and Leybourne Urwin
• Technical specialists – CharcoalBlue

Build time: 18 months; construction started in July 2016 and completed in November 2017.

Overall cost: £2.2 million

Sources of funding:

• Arts Council England
• Darlington Borough Council
• trusts and foundations
• Darlington Building Society

Procurement strategy: design and build 

 

General description of works

This project involved the conversion of a former Edwardian fire station into a space focused on performing arts for children and young people. The frontage of the former building was retained, while other parts of the building were demolished and replaced with a new build. The 820m2 footprint includes a flexible 150-seat studio theatre, a rehearsal studio, a creative play installation space, a family café area with story corner, an external play space, bespoke children’s toilets, dressing rooms, green room and office accommodation.

Case study

Theatre Hullabaloo is the only purpose-built theatre for children and families north of London. The company became a specialist producer of theatre for young audiences in 1997 but had been operating from various venues in the North East for over 30 years. The capital project was a gamechanger in terms of being able to extend their ambition and reach.

The main drivers for the capital project from Theatre Hullabaloo’s perspective were:

• The need for a home – the company had an office space but no performance space or publicly accessible building after the arts centre where they had been based had to close in 2012, effectively rendering them ‘homeless’.
• Relocating closer to an area of greater need – Theatre Hullabaloo saw an opportunity to make themselves more accessible to parts of Darlington where cultural opportunities have tended to be fewer. Miranda Thain, the Artistic Producer, explains, “We are now exactly where we should be – three minutes from the railway, in a ward that needs us, one of the 1% most deprived in the UK. We draw hyperlocal audiences and work closely with schools and nurseries on our doorstep.” 
• Ambition – the company were passionate about a child-centred approach and determined to make this manifest in a space. They worked hard to make the case locally to stakeholders, especially in the early stages of decision making. The Hullabaloo became an important advocacy tool for underlining the importance of creativity in childhood to a broad range of stakeholders involved in children’s lives.

Young people shaping the design

A child-centred approach is absolutely central to Theatre Hullabaloo’s work and the capital works were no exception. A team of eight-year-old consultant architects participated in the design process and further detailed research was carried out covering many different touch points. When young people were describing their aspirations for the project, they talked of creating a place ‘where the magic happens’, and about free play spaces and secret spaces rather than theatres. A key design outcome was the Gillian Dickinson Creative Play Space, which now exists right at the heart of the building. 

Creating an inclusive design was also important for this project. Through their research, the company deepened their understanding of what matters and how to design in solutions that enhance a sense of comfort and safety. From listening to the needs of neurodiverse children they found, for example, the importance of not having grid systems in the ceiling design (which create a sense of oppression) and opting for irregular patterns in the flooring. 

 

A new theatre quarter

Although Theatre Hullabaloo’s quest for a base had begun as a separate project, the opportunity arose to acquire a building adjacent to the Hippodrome, formerly Darlington Civic Theatre, which was also the subject of a major capital scheme. For Darlington Borough Council, this set off a vision of a Theatre Quarter where audiences could develop from a young age and where the community of Darlington could enjoy a wide range of cultural opportunities.

Co-location and the alignment of timescales meant that Theatre Hullaballoo’s project could be part of the main Hippodrome refurbishment scheme (representing £13.6 million of works). This joining up presented economies of scale and efficiency of project management.

Efficiency is also an aspect of the ongoing operating arrangements; Darlington Borough Council own the freehold of the two buildings and operate the Hippodrome, with Theatre Hullabaloo paying to lease the neighbouring space. The two operations share the same duty management, stage door, café staff, and box office systems, although owing to the specialist nature of their work, Theatre Hullabaloo employ and train their own front-of-house staff. The lease stipulates that Theatre Hullabaloo is entitled to a minimum of 50% usage across spaces for the child-centred offer. This enables Theatre Hullabaloo to be open daily from 10am to 2pm for children, families and schools, while also enabling the space to be available across some evenings for community use, small-scale theatre and comedy. 

Becoming locally, nationally and internationally significant

Theatre Hullabaloo’s new home has brought a distinctiveness to Darlington. As the local authority recognised in their decision-making papers, the long-term goal was for a children’s theatre within Darlington that would be nationally significant and a centre of excellence for theatre for young audiences. With audiences exceeding expectations (over 86,000 since opening, even with the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions), and Theatre Hullabaloo being invited to contribute to the development of national policy and securing academic research partnerships and funding from the NHS for ‘play on prescription’, this is becoming a reality. 

The sense of pride in place has also shifted. Winning awards is one element of this; in February 2019 The Hullabaloo was named Best Family Venue 2019 at the national Fantastic for Families Awards. Miranda Thain also feels that the company had underestimated “how powerful it is to put a vision into bricks and mortar”. She describes the ways in which local people have taken the building to heart, with some manifestation of this in the increase in individual donations (the building is free for people to visit and play in daily). They are particularly pleased that the demographic of visitors and audiences has also broadened. “The Creative Play has been a huge success in attracting those from the immediate area and from the more deprived areas in the town and surrounding areas,” says Miranda. “We are also attracting visitors from further afield Northumberland, Saltburn and into the Yorkshire Dales.”  

Creative Play, a rolling programme of specially commissioned art installations designed for child-led play, is free for families to access every day and has proved incredibly popular, drawing a wide range of visitors from across Tees Valley, the wider North East and into Yorkshire. This includes many people who hadn’t considered taking their children to the theatre before they met with Theatre Hullabaloo’s friendly Hullabaloo Hosts who manage the space, model play and introduce the wider programme of things for people to see and do at The Hullabaloo when they visit. The development from creative play visitors to audiences is particularly marked in the baby theatre programme which now regularly sells out with Hullabaloo regulars.

Miranda observes too that the step-change enables completely different positioning as a company, which in turn offers a platform for further growth. Theatre Hullabaloo is attracting national and international artists because of the distinctiveness and quality of the offer, with international programmes and collaborations with companies from Sweden and Australia and through the European Small Size network. They have diversified their income streams and secured funding at a higher level from trusts and foundations. They employ more staff and are now exploring a range of commercial and other opportunities for growth. 

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