Interview: 'It's Going To Be Hugely Exciting!': Co-Executive Director Sam Hansford on the Opening of Soho Theatre Walthamstow

After over a decade of planning and construction, Soho Theatre Walthamstow is officially opening on Friday 2 May. This major new 960-seat venue will house the very best UK and international comedy, theatre, cabaret and panto, alongside a lively creative engagement programme. Beautifully restored from the 1930’s former Granada by Waltham Forest Council in partnership with Soho Theatre, the new venue includes a refurbished Grade II* listed auditorium, brand-new studio spaces, backstage facilities, four bars and a restaurant.

Before the doors open to the public, BroadwayWorld had the chance to speak with Sam Hansford, one of the Co-Executive Directors of Soho Theatre Walthamstow. We discussed his journey with Soho Theatre, what it has been like to be a part of this project and what he’s most looking forward to about the opening!

How did you first get involved in the world of theatre?

I started out doing lighting and sound, actually, as a technician. I started to do some of that at school. And then when I went to university as well, I got involved in student theatre in Edinburgh, doing lighting and sound at the Bedlam Theatre, and then moved into other areas, producing and venue management. So that was my route in. But I was very fortunate to study in Edinburgh, and every summer have the world's largest arts festival turn up on my doorstep... so I was exposed to the best theatre and comedy in the world.

When I moved to London after university, I found a home at Soho Theatre - often described as a mini version of Edinburgh Fringe all year round. And in terms of the theatre and comedy programme, I found myself there a lot and was lucky enough to get a paid marketing internship at Soho Theatre in 2012, which was my first proper paying job in theatre!

And how did you become the Co-Executive Director of Soho Theatre Walthamstow?

So having worked at Soho Theatre for three months or so in 2012, I then relocated and went and worked at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society.

And then in 2013, I was back in touch with the Soho Theatre team. They had a couple of projects on the go - one of them was a digital project, an ambition that the organisation had to produce our own in-house digital comedy content for broadcast and distribution in the UK and internationally. So that was one, and the second was Soho Theatre Walthamstow, which, at that point, was in a very different place, and much more of a speculative project. So there was an opening in the team to come and work on both of those projects. I was really excited to come and do that!

In 2013 we were still looking at how this building might be saved and whether it was even possible! So a long journey, but an exciting one.

I then left Soho Theatre in 2018 after five years working on both those projects...And in 2023, the opportunity came up to come back [to Soho Theatre]. And it was brilliant to go full circle from looking at those very early feasibility plans for Soho Theatre Walthamstow to be able to come back as Co-Executive Director, to work with Mark [Godfrey], whom I'd worked with for many years in my previous role. What an amazing opportunity. So exciting!

What was it like to return to this project and see how much it had changed?

The project's been going about fifteen years - Soho first started looking at this building in 2010. In terms of what it was like to come back, on the one hand, it felt very familiar - I had been involved in developing the vision and the plans at an early stage. Of course, like all projects, it had all changed and moved on, as things do over time. There were lots of new things to learn. But what was really great was being able to come back to what was a real on-site construction project with lots of challenges and problems that needed solving, but also a clear plan to getting open and building this amazing theatre that we now have. 

Can you tell us a bit about the history of the building?

So there's been an entertainment venue on this site for more than 100 years, but this building was built in 1930 by an entrepreneur and founder of Granada called Sidney Bernstein, who built it as the Granada Cinema, a 2,700-seat theatre. He worked with an architect called Cecil Masey and the theatre director-designer Theodore Komisarjevsky and created this amazing space with a fantastic auditorium and these incredible foyers and front of house spaces.

The venue has an amazing heritage and history. It has had all the classic films with an original Christie organ that played. And also panto and variety, and music - The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Johnny Cash, all performed on this amazing stage. And then more recently, in the 70s, it became a three-screen cinema with Odeon, and then later an independent cinema called the EMD. 

And then in the early 2000s, the building was sold to a church organisation. There was this huge, inspirational, grassroots campaign to save the building... local people opposed the plans to change the use of the venue, and were successful in doing so, which was really exciting. 

But what the building needed was a clear plan of how it was going to be saved, and a vision for what it could be, because it was built as a 2,700-seat cinema, but a cinema that size isn’t really viable, so it needed a plan. And that's where two other groups kind of got involved. One is a local organnisation that was set up called Waltham Forest Cinema Trust, and the other is Soho Theatre.

My colleague, Mark Godfrey, who's Executive Director and led on the building of Soho Theatre on Dean Street 25 years ago, had recently moved to Walthamstow. Soho Theatre is known for groundbreaking new theatre, but also is a home for stand-up comedy in London. We’ve worked with comedians from across the UK and international comedians, and have a huge following, audience and a curated programme.  

So we thought that there was a real gap for 1,000-seat comedy venue that could reach a London-wide audience, and so a plan was developed by Soho Theatre and the Waltham Forest Cinema Trust.

A vision for what this building could be, which we described as “a local theatre with a national profile,” which could be a brilliant, 1,000-seat venue that could present comedy, theatre, panto...really world-class work, and be really rooted in its local community. Lots of local opportunity, creative engagement programme, opportunities for jobs, regeneration. So that vision and that partnership between Soho Theatre and the Cinema Trust was crucial, and played an important role in eventually winning the planning inquiry.

The other important step was bringing the Council on board. What is brilliant is that the local authority, Waltham Forest Council, really bought into that vision and saw that opportunity, both for cultural and community benefit, but also the economic regeneration argument - what it could do to the nighttime economy in Walthamstow and for the rest of the borough in Waltham Forest. So they stepped in and purchased the building, and we have worked in partnership with them to deliver this fantastic project. 

And now here we are, about to open! The programme that we have got on sale is really delivering on that vision, which has actually developed even further, because it was “local theatre with a national profile.” But actually, if you look at the artists that we've got coming to perform here over the next year, artists like Natalie Palamides and Tim Minchin and many, many others, it's a more international profile. So we think it’s a really exciting new chapter for this building about to start.

What is it like to be so close to the opening after planning for so long? 

Do you know what? It's really brilliant. I've been back at Soho Theatre for two years and all that time it's been a construction project, at times very technical and very difficult. And slowly, it's turned into a working building. Every time I've been in this building over the last few weeks, there are artists rehearsing, having meetings, doing publicity photos or just looking around the space. And so whilst this building is beautifully restored, beautifully put back together - absolutely stunning and I think it's going to blow people away.

But actually, it's just a building. What's really exciting for me is seeing it filled with people. And it's full of artists now and beginning to feel alive and full of people. And then the 2nd of May will be the first night of our opening show, Natalie Palamides’ WEER, and that's going to be such an exciting moment, to see that first audience in this building in 22 years come in, having a great time watching a show. That's what it's all for, really! So that's what I'm excited about.

What do you hope audiences experience at Soho Theatre Walthamstow?

We often talk about Soho Theatre as a great night out. And our Dean Street venue is, with its three spaces and a buzzing bar - it's a really fantastic place to go and experience some of the very best in theatre, comedy and cabaret. I really hope that this will build on that, and that people who come to Soho Theatre Walthamstow will be blown away by this amazing 1930s building, but will also find that same Soho Theatre buzz.

And I'm really excited that there'll be both a local audience from Walthamstow who'll have this on their doorstep, but also the audiences who will come to Walthamstow, some of whom probably for the first time, and find that actually, it's less than twenty minutes from Oxford Circus on the Victoria line. You jump off the Tube, you're five minutes up the road and all of this is here. It's going to be hugely exciting!