The Turbine Theatre in Battersea is to close

The Turbine Theatre in Battersea is due to close at the end of the year. The sad news was announced online by the venue’s artistic director Paul Taylor-Mills, who will continue his role as artistic director of The Other Palace in Victoria.

The Turbine Theatre – whose tagline on its website is ‘generating new work’ – is renowned for exactly that. The powerhouse venue – small in size (seating just 92) but mighty in its ambition to support new writing – was launched by Taylor-Mills in 2019 as a welcome addition to the regenerated area of Battersea Power Station. At the time, he said: ‘It has been a lifetime dream of mine to have a home for my ideas that feels authentically “me”. We’re interested in being the starting point for new shows and also reimagining the older ones.’

But I'm a Cheerleader at the Turbine Theatre (credit: Mark Senior)

I first encountered The Turbine Theatre in May 2021 when my son was cast as Scarlett Strallen’s son in Far From Heaven, one of the musicals comprising that year’s MTFest – the annual showcase, also founded by Taylor-Mills, which serves as a vital platform for new work, and work not yet seen by UK audiences (Far From Heaven by Scott Frankel, Michael Korie and Richard Greenberg had been seen in New York, but this marked its UK premiere). Nestled under a railway arch (you can hear the trains rumbling overheard), the space felt warm, welcoming and exciting. The director Matthew White (who recently directed the Menier’s Pacific Overtures) spoke to us, the audience, before the show began – explaining the workshop-style presentation, and the fact that we’d only be seeing the first act. We felt involved – part of the process. ‘I wanted a festival that could…create a safe environment where artists could play with the material,’ Taylor-Mills has said about MTFest, and this really was the case here. I returned for a workshop of new musical Proud, by Lee Freeman, Mark Anderson and Graham Lappin, starring Jordan Luke Gage, Rebecca Locke and other consummate performers, and they had a whale of a time trying out this hilarious new material – as did we.

That same year, other musicals in MTFest included Tony! by Harry Hill and Steve Brown (I even spotted Harry Hill having a beer outside the theatre), which recently enjoyed a UK tour, and Cake, which played at The Other Palace last month (albeit for a shorter-than-planned run) starring Zizi Strallen and René Lamb – a cast recording has just been released. Separate to MTFest, Rob Madge’s My Son’s A Queer also began its life at The Turbine, again in 2021, and has since enjoyed a West End run and a UK tour (a Broadway run was postponed – but watch this space).

Rob Madge in 'My Son's a Queer' at the Garrick Theatre (credit: Mark Senior)

In our August/September 2024 issue, this magazine reviewed Closer to Heaven at The Turbine, starring Frances Ruffelle and Courtney Bowman. Our review Scott Matthewman praised the show, with music and lyrics by the Pet Shop Boys, writing: ‘Since its debut, the musical has been revived several times, but it feels most at home at Battersea’s Turbine Theatre.’

I spoke to Taylor-Mills for our launch issue in 2022, and he talked about receiving upwards of 300 applications for each year’s MTFest. Sifting through them, and deciding which ones to showcase, took up a huge amount of time but it was a process he loved – and still does. As he said in our Day in the Life feature (April/May 2023), ‘From October, I’ll start working through all applications after lunch, in between meetings or whenever I have time, really’. He added: ‘It’s a huge risk to produce new work – it’s always going to be expensive, and it requires great optimism.’

Paul Taylor-Mills (credit: Mark Senior)

In the statement released today, he elaborates on this latter point: ‘As the landscape of making theatre shifts, without serious investment and philanthropy, a 92-seat space just can’t work and it’s time for me to focus my efforts elsewhere. The Turbine Theatre has been an absolutely labour of love. It shouldn’t have worked. But it did and I’m so incredibly proud of the lives it’s changed and the dreams it’s made come true.’

MTFest 2025 will go ahead as planned, but solely at The Other Palace (in previous years, the event has been held across both venues). In the meantime, Taylor-Mills will focus all his energies on The Other Palace; the final show planned for The Turbine Theatre is The Lion, The Bitch and the Wardrobe (‘A Very Adult Panto’) by Joshua Coley, from 21 November to 22 December. ‘Come celebrate with us this Christmas as we present our final production,’ Taylor-Mills says to conclude his statement. ‘Thank you to everyone that believed. In the words of one of my most important mentors Bill Kenwright [with whom Taylor-Mills produced Heathers], ‘no risk, no magic’.

Submissions are now open for MTFest 2025 (January and February, 2025), and close on 30 October – email programming@theotherpalace.co.uk or visit theotherpalace.co.uk; to book tickets for The Lion, The Bitch and the Wardrobe, visit theturbinetheatre.com