News Release

14th September 2002

THE GARRICK THEATRE

Following a meeting with Paul Everitt, Artistic Director of The Garrick Theatre currently being constructed in Lichfield, Michael Fabricant will be approaching the new management at the Royal Shakespeare Company to suggest that The Garrick be their temporary home during the proposed reconstruction of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford upon Avon.

"The Garrick will have the latest theatre facilities when it is completed next year and will be an ideal site for the RSC" says Michael Fabricant, a member of the House of Commons Select Committee for Culture, Media & Sport. "Sir David Garrick was the first actor to be knighted and his most famous roles were as characters from Shakespeare's plays. It sort of makes sense that the RSC should come to Lichfield".

Michael Fabricant originally proposed that the Royal Shakespeare Company should move to Lichfield when the House of Commons Committee investigated the plans for the new theatre village being proposed at Stratford. Since then, there has been a change of management at the RSC, but with Paul Everitt's support, Michael will be contacting them again with the offer. "I am keen to attract tourism to Lichfield" says Michael Fabricant "and by putting the new Garrick Theatre on the world map of the arts, many visitors from abroad would be attracted to our City. Nevertheless, as an honorary vice president of the Lichfield Operatic Society and of other local groups, we must ensure that any bookings they have at the Garrick are not displaced by the RSC. I am have been reassured, however, that local bookings will be honoured."

At Paul Everitt's suggestion, Michael will also be speaking to the Garrick Club in London. "I understand that they have an endowment for the arts and I hope that the Club might well consider that the Garrick Theatre in Lichfield is something with which they would wish to be associated. After all, the first actor knight, Sir David Garrick after which the Club was named, was born and educated in Lichfield".

Michael, who is on the Executive of the 1922 Committee of the Conservative Party, will be having dinner at the Garrick Club in October with Iain Duncan Smith.