I visited the Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre for the first time in March 2023, to see an excellent production of ‘Newsies’. This post is not a review of that production however, but rather of the venue itself.

The Troubadour is a new building having opened in 2019. It is very functional and not designed to be easy on the eye. The auditorium is on one level and the seating is designed to be flexible so as to accommodate various types of productions, what it does not accommodate very well is people with impaired mobility. The entrance and main foyer, where the bar, box office, and toilets, including two toilets for disabled people, are also on one level floor, which at least makes gaining entrance relatively easy.

Seats allocated to people in wheelchairs are all located on the front rows, the other rows are all raised and require the use of steps to access them, but there are no handrails. People like me, who have impaired mobility but do not use wheelchairs, have to rely on either someone offering an arm to cling to or use the back of the nearest seats to steady themselves as they climb. It is an unnerving experience when there a lot of people moving up and down the stairs.

To be honest this kind of occurrence puts me off visiting certain venues. It always feels that only the minimum has been done to claim inclusion for disabled people. I have a serious problem with steps or stairs that do not have a handrail to help me keep my balance. Even leaning on someone’s arm or shoulder, a more controlled technique I only use when no one else is around as people do have a habit of colliding with me unintentionally, does not always inspire confidence. Using the backs of a seat that someone is sat in usually attracts a peculiar or even a reproachful look from that person, as well as the morbid fascination of others watching that bloke struggle up the steps in an ungainly manner. Disability and dignity do not go together very well or even very often.

I read a lot about inclusion and how society is working towards increasing it for everyone, but the reality always seems to fall short of the aspirations suggested. New theatres do not appear that often and the Troubadour is one of the newest and yet it fails to impress on this score. It is a curious fact that many of the older theatres have better access for people like me because the architects were not shy of utilising handrails for steps and staircases. We might be going forward in theatre design but that does not mean that we are progressing.