Making memories at Leith Theatre
About Leith Theatre
Leith Theatre opened in 1932, built for the people of Leith 'as a gift from the people of Edinburgh', following the Burgh of Leith’s incorporation into Edinburgh. Behind its impressive classical façade is a sumptuous Art Deco circular entrance and box office, leading into the main auditorium with a barrel-vaulted ceiling, a U-shaped balcony and proscenium stage.
We added Leith Theatre to our Theatres at Risk Register in 2016, bringing the campaign to resurrect the theatre to a wider audience. The theatre had been closed since the 1980s and survived a threat of redevelopment in 2004, thanks to passionate local support. This led to the establishment of Leith Theatre Trust, which has been working ever since to restore and revive this wonderful building.
Resilient Theatres: Resilient Communities-funded Memory Project
In 2024 we awarded Leith Theatre Trust a £7,000 grant from our RResilient Theatres: Resilient Communities Programme to carry out a pilot oral history project. This funded an expert consultancy to support Leith Theatre Trust to develop its approach.
The initial project, Memory Booth, saw one of the theatre’s original 1930s telephone booths refitted as a mini recording space. The booth contained a Raspberry Pi system, allowing somebody to pick up the receiver, hear a recorded message and leave a short memory.
However, it soon became clear that a different approach would be needed to capture the longer richer interviews that would be truly beneficial to telling Leith Theatre’s story to funders, partners and the community. Creating Memory Bank involved putting a call out and inviting people in for interviews lasting 45 to 60 minutes. The resulting nine interviews have been transcribed, clipped into 108 shorter excerpts and stored in a Digital Media Archive, ready to be used to tell Leith’s heritage story.
“All three evening I came to here at Leith Theatre were magical evenings. It was like an out of body experience, like when you are a wee kid on Christmas morning. You can hardly believe that the band you saw on TV last month. The first one I came along to was Slade. I came with a bunch of pals from school and the whole evening was a bit of a blur. They did all their greatest hits, the band were fantastic, they had the crowd in the palm of their hands all night” Memory Bank participant
“This was a place where people who wouldn’t normally go to the festival, would go to the festival… I had the impression it was kind of cosy...A social sort of thing, where they saw people they knew” Memory Bank participant
Reaching wider audiences
Leith Theatre has used the Memory Bank project as a way of speaking about its heritage and starting conversations with audiences it hadn’t previously engaged with, by putting up posters in key community spaces across Leith such as Leith Library and Leith Dockers Club, reaching audiences less likely to see its usual social media marketing.
For this pilot phase the aim was to capture a spread of different memories, but with the ambition to collect early memories as priority while it was still possible. Incredibly, they were able to interview someone remembered the bombing of Leith Theatre during World War II.
“This particular night, the sirens had gone. And I remember my brother and I were in the bed and suddenly this horrendous crash and we were aware that terrible things were happening upstairs. We were absolutely safe and when the morning came and they all clear the signal came we didn't know what we were going to see when we went upstairs…Every window was shattered. This had been a plane that was coming back from bombing Clyde Bank. A German plane heading for home still had a bomb at least one aboard and was dropped and this poor old Leith Town Hall as we called the theatre then got the brunt of it.” Memory Bank participant
Outcomes and future plans
Leith Theatre Trust ran the project over a year, which allowed heritage to be an organisational priority and help improve its heritage tour, in turn giving more access to people with memories of the theatre.
Building on the successful pilot, the next phrases of this work are being planned, including creating a volunteer programme around heritage and the Memory Bank. Both the Memory Bank and Memory Booth will be a key part of the public consultation later in 2025.
The major achievement of the project is that it has enabled Leith Theatre Trust to improve its pitch to funders. This has already resulted in securing a significant grant from National Lottery Heritage Fund to develop its capital refurbishment plans and work with the funder to unlock the full funding of over £4.2m.
“As this has developed, we realise that we are building a social history of Leith, not just memories of the theatre at different life stages. This is a fascinating peek into the foundations of why Leith Theatre is so important” Anna, Funding Manager, Leith Theatre Trust
“Through the Memory Project, I gained a deeper understanding of the importance of highlighting the personal connections people have with buildings, like Leith Theatre. It painted a vivid picture of individuals' lives within the local community and illustrated the deep roots the venue has had in shaping their experiences. I also developed my interview skills and was trained to use recording software, which feels highly transferable for my future work in media” Aisha, Marketing and Digital Coordinator, Leith Theatre Trust