Bid to bring 93-year-old theatre back to life secures £4.5m National Lottery boost

One of Scotland's most "at risk" cultural buildings has been thrown a £4.5 million lifeline after plans to revive it as full-time venue secured crucial National Lottery funding.

A bid to bring Leith Theatre back to life year-round for live music, theatre, stage musicals and film screenings has been backed by the National Lottery Heritage Fund just days after it emerged that a 50-year lease had been agreed with the city council.

The venue was closed for nearly 30 years until 2017 and has since only been used occasionally for festivals, one-off events and filming due to its poor condition and shortage of facilities. It has been on Britain’s official “theatres at risk register” since 2016.

However it will reopen for the first time since 2022 this summer for a three-month "pop-up season," launching with a new stage musical adaptation of the classic 1980s Scottish film comedy Restless Natives, which was partly set and filmed in Edinburgh.

Leith Theatre chair Bob Last revealed Sir Sean Connery's family had already backed the bid to revive the theatre and said discussions were underway about a celebratory event in 2026 to mark 30 years of Trainspotting's release in cinemas.

The National Lottery funding pledge, which is expected to be confirmed as detailed plans are developed over the next two years, has been hailed as a "significant milestone" by the Leith Theatre Trust, which was created in the wake of a campaign launched in 2004 to halt council plans to sell the building off to developers.

The National Lottery backing is expected to unlock other support for the long-planned revamp of the B-listed landmark on Ferry Road, which is expected to cost up to £10 million.

Chief executive Lynn Morrison said: "This a huge day for Leith Theatre.

"I've been in this post since November 2018 and it has been an ambition since the very beginning to secure support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

"It's been such a journey to get investment ready and be able to apply for funding, and for us then to be successful.

"It's enormously important for us to get to this point. We now have an 18 month-two year road map to work towards the capital project which will allow us to open full-time."

The building, which was "gifted" to Leith after its controversial merger with Edinburgh in 1920, has had a chequered history since opening in 1932.

It was almost destroyed by a Second World War bomb blast and remained closed until 1961 before becoming one of the city's main music venues.

AC/DC, Mott the Hoople, Thin Lizzy and Kraftwerk all performed in the building, which was a centrepiece of the Edinburgh International Festival's programme, hosting classic music, opera, theatre and ballet productions until 1988, when it was closed due to its declining condition.

The theatre remained closed until 2017 when it was reopened by the Hidden Door festival. It has since played host to the likes of Mogwai, Young Fathers, Alan Cumming, Jarvis Cocker and Neneh Cherry.

The trust said the revamp, which is hoped to get under way by early 2027, would address long-term "damage and decay" suffered by the building, and ensure it is both a viable "mid-sized" performance venue and hub for the local community.

It has pledged to ensure the revamp of the building, which has been compared to the Barrowland Ballroom in Glasgow, "preserves the charm and heritage that makes it so enthralling to visitors.

It said the end result would be "a remix of the old and the new, retrofitting the iconic venue to preserve its rock-and-roll spirit while hitting the right notes on sustainability."

Mr Last said: "We've been listening to this building over the last few years and now know it inside out.

"We've discovered more about the original vision for the building, which was incredibly well-thought through.

"It's a huge building, which hasn't been properly maintained for many decades. There is a large investment and significant work required, but we're not going to be radically reinventing the physics of the building.

"It's about providing the resources so the building can operate at maximum capacity with a full-time licence so that the public can get the maximum access and benefit."