29 September 2021
Last Saturday, we sadly finally moved out of our rehearsal, storage and build space at 1 Brewers' Hall Garden (BHG).
It was so sad seeing years of Sedos history being loaded on to two articulated lorries to be put into storage until we can recover it when we find a new home! Our key items have gone to a storage space in central London, so at least we have access to enough to keep us going.
A straw poll of those present who had been at both the move into BHG back in 2013 and at our exit reckoned that the amount of stuff being cleared out was between four and 10 times the amount of stuff that we had when we moved in.
It is incredible to think of what having BHG (and its predecessor, Ocean House) has done to transform Sedos. But we also have to remember that prior to 2009, Sedos didn’t have any permanent space, so we are in fact going back to where we were – but hopefully only temporarily.
Having BHG has allowed us to improve our production values, to have a single home, to have somewhere to access our gear - and to produce shows such as Into the Woods, Legally Blonde, Noises Off, The Drowsy Chaperone, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Pippin and Ragtime. It has also enabled us to provide a regular home to Sedance and Simprov.
We have contingency plans in place to support all the shows for the rest of this calendar year, and are working on extending those arrangements as necessary to support our 2022 shows - but in the meantime we are also working very hard to identify more permanent space. We have a number of irons in the fire, but do reach out to any of the trustees or management committee members personally or via committee@sedos.co.uk if you have any suggestions or know someone who has access to an unused office basement.
Finally, we just want to say a huge thank you to all of those who assisted with the clear out of BHG. It was an absolutely mammoth undertaking - huge to organise and execute - but done with incredible diligence and an enormous amount of effort. In particular we want to say thank you to Adam Coppard who has pretty much arranged everything - without him, we couldn't have done it!
One chapter ends - but there will be a new start very, very soon!
