Cox for King’s
Brian Cox made honorary patron for King’s campaign
Scottish actor Brian Cox is to become honorary patron of the £25m campaign to transform the King’s Theatre for future generations.
The Festival City Theatres Trust runs the 1906 theatre and has put forward plans to modernise and preserve it for the future. The Edwardian auditorium will be retained, while front of house and backstage facilities will be modernised to create a vibrant theatre which attracts the best performing companies.
Brian Cox at the Kings. Pic Phil Wilkinson
The campaign got off to a good start when the plan got the orange light from the City of Edinburgh Council in March this year, before the local government elections. The CEC finance and resources committee agreed an in-principle allocation of £5million for the project in its capital investment programme for 2018-23, as well as an in-principle extension of the King’s lease.
These in-principle agreements will need to be confirmed under the new CEC administration, as detailed here: New Culture Committee for Edinburgh.
In his support for the King’s Theatre, Cox says: “The King’s Theatre is a gem which deserves to be preserved. If we don’t invest in our theatres, we stand to lose a vital part of Scotland’s cultural heritage and a theatre for everyone for generations to come.”
Brian Cox is already an honorary patron for the Lyceum, where he was a founding member of the Lyceum Theatre Company, performing in its first show, The Servant O’ Twa Maisters, in October 1965, after beginning he career at Dundee Rep in 1961. He returned to appear in the Lyceum’s production of John Byrne’s Uncle Varick in 2004, and Waiting for Godot in the its fiftieth anniversary programme in 2015.
He is also a patron for Scottish Youth Theatre, a patron of “THE SPACE” training facility for actors and dancers in his native Dundee and an “ambassador” for Screen Academy Scotland.
Brian Cox famously returned from some years teaching and directing at the Moscow Arts theatre school to play King Lear at the King’s Theatre Edinburgh in 1991. He also performed at the Festival Theatre in the RSC’s production of Music Man in 1995.
In his latest film production he stars as Winston Churchill in Churchill (2017).
ENDS
