Shaftesbury Theatre is a prominent Grade II listed theatre located in a local conservation area in London's West End. The theatre dates from 1911 and was the last and most northerly of Shaftesbury Avenue’s venues to be completed. Under its current ownership it has built a reputation as a receiving house for large-scale musical theatre, but with the technical demands of productions increasing, the existing timber-framed flytower was increasingly seen as a limitation on the commercial potential of the venue.

The Fire Surgery was appointed to develop a comprehensive fire safety strategy for the redevelopment of the fly tower. The scheme was an extension to the existing theatre fly tower with ancillary accommodation at a construction cost of £3.5M. The project entailed building a 35-tonne capacity flytower plus offices, dressing rooms and plant on top of an existing theatre that had to remain operational at all times. The tight deadline was the opening of the blockbuster show, Motown, in March 2016. Straddling the existing stage on four steel columns, it had the potential to be independently built above the existing flytower roof, allowing the theatre to operate below during much of the construction period.

Client: The Theatre of Comedy Company

Architect: Bennetts Associates Limited

Project Value: £3.5m