The Gaiety reopens this week following a major refurbishment. Frank McDonald gets comfy in the new surroundings.
John Gunn, who founded Dublin's Gaiety Theatre in 1871, would barely recognise the place these days - certainly not the weekend nightclub on three levels that generates up to a third of its revenue, or the notion of people having an al fresco lunch under the canopy.
But the patrician-looking Victorian impressario, just like Micawber, might have appreciated that it's all about making the sums stack up. His bust - erected by "a few friends", as the simple inscription notes - still adorns the main staircase of the theatre on South King Street.
It's up to John Costigan, who has been running the Gaiety since 1996, to make sure that it pays. Not that its owner, promoter Denis Desmond, pockets all the cash - some €2.2 million of the theatre's profits in recent years has been invested in its latest lavish refurbishment.
The Gaiety was re-made in the 1890s by Frank Matcham, the great Victorian theatre architect, and it retains much of his Gay Nineties magic. All is not quite as it seems - the elaborate discs on the Dress Circle balcony are cast-iron while some of the Rococo "plasterwork" is papier maché.
Louis Elliman, who ran the theatre for 30 years, carried out an extensive refurbishment in 1955, including the addition of a decorative coved ceiling, like an upturned platter, over the Grand Circle. The panelled foyer, staircase and two of the Gaiety's three bars also date from that period.
The Grand Circle bar was re-modelled five years ago in a 1950s cocktail bar style, complete with a serpentine counter. There's even an air of Hollywood about the armless white padded chairs, but it's anchored in Dublin by Tom Lawlor's panoramic photograph of the city and the bay.
The Gaiety has been a Grade I listed building since 1980 and, like the Olympia in Dame Street, this designation specifically protects its use as a theatre. That was done at the instigation of its then manager, Fred O'Donovan, when it looked as if the building was threatened by redevelopment.
Yet the various arms of the State have shown a remarkable reluctance to invest public money in its future. An application for aid under the EU co-funded National Development Plan failed, as did a more recent submission seeking a share of the €32 million Access programme for the arts.
The only public money which the theatre has received was £500,000 in Millennium funding, and even that came with strings attached - it could not be spent in any area where people had to pay to get in. Hence, it went to refurbishing the façade and providing a new retro-style canopy.
Fortuitously, this work coincided with the re-ordering of South King Street, so the Gaiety got a granite-paved "plaza" in front with some attractive polished granite benches. The underlighting of the opaque glass canopy at night-time contributes to the sense of a theatrical occasion.
What John Costigan wanted from the Access programme was funding towards work on the stage and back-stage areas, including a bigger fly-tower, so that the Gaiety could widen its programme. "We failed miserably because there was a lot of politics involved as well as a regional bias," he says.
The Gate Theatre, by contrast, got money to build a new rehearsal room under the same programme. Asked if this showed that Michael Colgan was a better charmer, Costigan puts it down to "charm and connections and also the fact that the Gate is publicly funded and we're not".
He compares the operation of a theatre to a railway system: "The service can make a profit, but you need a proper infrastructure. My argument is that this is a Grade I listed building, it's no use for anything else, so you're not going to put money into something that's going to disappear."
The Gaiety's owners have never been unwilling to put money into the theatre so long as it's making a profit. Costigan reckons Denis Desmond has invested €5 million over the past eight years, largely on the strength of its financial performance. The sums, in other words, stack up.
The theatre runs its own productions, rather than farming them out to others. Even the sweets stall in the foyer was "taken back in"; having been rented out for £5,000 a year, it made £150,000 for the management in 1996 - though the Plaza Café only "washes its face", as Costigan says.
The latest works include a new fire alarm system and the renewal of all electrical services. Given that there had been several power failures and the ESB had pleaded "inability to supply" the theatre, it had to bear the cost of installing a new sub-station to guarantee the show would go on.
For theatre patrons, the most welcome change has involved replacing all of the rickety seats in the Parterre and Dress Circle with more comfortable models. They may not be quite up to the standard of multiplex cinemas, but Costigan points out that each seat is an inch wider than those at the Gate.
Upholstered in wine-coloured velvet, they give the Gaiety a plusher atmosphere. Big brass letters indicate each row and the new seats, all made by Entertainment Seating of Scotland, are grimped with brass studs. Some of the old seats were taken by Brendan Grace for his new pub in Co Clare.
Some may object to the removal of the centre aisle of the Parterre, but there's now more space between each row - mainly to meet fire escape requirements. And though the floor here has been covered in Marmoleum, the rest of the theatre is finished in carpet.
Up on the Grand Circle, the seats have been refurbished rather than replaced - but it is "the gods", after all. The capacity has also been marginally reduced from 1,165 to 1,141. There is also better lighting under the balconies, to compensate for that feeling of being tucked away at the rear.
Dublin's other Victorian theatre, the Olympia, by comparison, desperately needs a thorough refurbishment. Costigan is guarded in what he will say about it, given Denis Desmond's involvement there, too. "We're not a music venue, let's put it that way", he says.
The Gaiety's old air-handling system, installed by Louis Elliman, is being replaced by a full air-conditioning unit to meet the higher expectations of theatre-goers these days. But re-doing the backstage area, at an estimated cost of €2.5 million, remains an aspiration if money can be found.
"We had to address modern requirements for comfort, lighting and atmosphere first," Costigan says. The work was done by architects Holohan Leisure, who also did the Lyceum in London. "I will be well and truly gone before somebody goes back in there and does another job on it."
He freely concedes that the three-storey nightclub, which operates from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, is "a big part of the business" - though catering for its approved capacity of 500 has meant the installation of two new emergency escape routes from the upper levels.
Dublin City Council has been "very supportive" in dealing with the alterations, showing more flexibility on internal alterations than its counterparts in Britain. And so, after a break of just five weeks, the Gaiety re-opened this week "without any hassle", as its manager says. It deserves to be celebrated.