From the outside, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the former Savoy Bingo Club in Tonyrefail was still closed, but head inside and what awaits is a fully functioning theatre – the result of an extensive renovation, lead by Daniel Robertson and his partner Hayley Taylor.
FACELIFT: The Savoy Theatre is raising money to restore its Grade II-listed facade.
The pair moved to the area from Southend-on-Sea in Essex, where they ran the New Empire Theatre alongside Daniel’s sister Julie. Described at one time by the local press as being “the prettiest theatre outside of London”, the Empire was open for ten years before closing its doors in 2008, in part due to the fractured relationship they had with the buildings landlord Richard Shea.
“The Empire was exciting, but it was hard work,” Daniel recalls. “It had its bad times and moments where you’d just think ‘why do we bother?’, but doesn’t everything? We got to a point where it was coming to the end of the lease and it was becoming difficult to renew it. It’s difficult to put the blame on anybody, and I won’t. I can’t.”
After a spate of anti-social behaviour, and an arson attack in 2015, the theatre was sold to a Hong Kong-based investment company in 2016. Demolition finally began on the site the following year.
“It was upsetting, I’ll admit. If it hadn’t been for Hayley, I would probably have lost the plot. It was very sad.”
Daniel grew up in Southend and had a challenging time in education. He wanted to study practical subjects like technical drawing, sciences, metal and woodwork, but was given subjects like religious studies instead. He found a Saturday job at an electronics store when he was fifteen, but his PE teacher had other ideas for him – he wanted Daniel to join the rugby team.
“I decided I wasn’t going to,” he said.“ The rugby teacher got funny about it and said, ‘you will be on the pitch on Tuesday night for a practice, and I said ‘no, I won’t’. He basically dragged me out of the classroom, threw me in the gym, locked me in and told me to change. I smashed my way out and never went back to school again, and that was at fifteen.”
It was Daniel’s uncle – who was a stagehand at the Cliffs Pavilion, Southend’s largest theatre – that suggested he ask if any part-time jobs were going at the Cliffs. There were, and he could start quickly.
“They had just stripped everything out ready for the panto - so just a massive, massive, empty brick wall at the back of the stage...,” he recalls. “And I just stood there, a small child, skinny as anything, hands in my pockets, thinking ‘what have I done?’. I was scared.” He was there for seventeen and a half years, and did almost every role available; sound, lighting, stage management and maintenance.
“The Cliffs Pavilion was an amazing venue. Everyone was so friendly. It was a really nice team, and I did some amazing stuff.”
When the Cliffs closed for refurbishment in 1991, Daniel moved onto other things... He had his own recording studio, taught at a secondary school, a college and at the University of Essex. He was also fortunate enough to be chosen as the Chief Engineer for the Queen’s speech at Dartford’s Queen Elizabeth II Bridge opening in 1991.
“The morning of the speech the sound desk packed up,” he humorously recounts. “They specified every piece of equipment that you used, because it was royal.”
RESTORATION MAN: Daniel Robertson.
“I can remember the team going back to the warehouse to pick up an old desk, an old rusty thing that had been sat there for all that time. We whacked that in and no-one knew the difference! So, the Queen did her speech through some £50 Studio Master piece of rubbish – no-one knew!”
Daniel and Hayley stumbled across the Savoy Bingo Club online when searching for old cinemas that they could convert into a theatre. They visited twice before agreeing to purchase the Grade II-listed property in 2012, and they also held a public meeting in a local church to discuss the plans, where the feedback they received was overwhelmingly positive.
They took the leap in October that year, paying £150,000. However, it may never have happened, as the purchase was thrown into doubt at the last minute, when the person buying Daniel’s Essex home tried to negotiate the price, leading Daniel to tell him to take it or leave it. Thankfully, the gentleman did still go ahead with the sale.
The theatre opened its doors for its first performance in April 2015 and has since hosted schools, drama and dancing clubs, touring shows, variety shows, wrestling, indoor circus, tribute acts, pantomimes and plays.
Tonyrefail is a quiet village, with just 12,000 or so living there. The bingo club – which was originally a cinema for the mining community when it opened in 1914 – opened in the 1980s, was closed for renovations in 2002, but never re-opened.
“People still come here and reminisce. They say ‘wow, it’s changed a lot’.”
As a Southend-on-Sea native myself, it is clear to see how the décor of the auditorium echoes that of the New Empire, with its royal blue and gold palette – something they say wasn’t intentional.
“It wasn’t a conscious decision really, to make it look like the Empire. It really wasn’t. Hayley ordered wallpaper from Germany thinking it was similar to what was there, and it was actually identical!”
A majority of the technical equipment used previously in the New Empire has also made its way across the Severn Bridge from Essex to Wales, and is still in use today.
There is still a great deal of work to be done, with the priority currently being a £60,000 restoration of the buildings façade. They would like to get a heating system fitted, which could cost upwards of £25,000, and later possibly extend the foyer – a small area which Daniel, Hayley and their cat called home until they converted part of the theatre into a flat.
Daniel and Hayley take very little money from the business, as they reinvest it back into the building.
“We didn’t come here to make money, and we never will do it for that reason. It’s more of a community project. This is my retirement, this is my fun. As long as this place pays for itself and we can pay the bills.”
There are no staffing costs at the Savoy, thanks to a small but dedicated group of volunteers who take on some of the less technical aspects of the theatre’s running - this also one of Daniel’s worries.
“We’ve been lucky. The way people have supported us has just been incredible. Their generosity, their friendship. But the challenge here, now we’re running, is staffing. The volunteers we have here are great, they’re absolutely great, but technically we have no back up. If Hayley and I become ill, that’s it. That’s one of our biggest fears, one of us getting ill.”
A man of many talents, Dan is far from replaceable.