This year, the Unity celebrates three decades in its Hope Place home. Laura Davis looks back over the theatre’s history

WE FOUGHT it on the beaches, on the seas and oceans, in the fields and in the streets. And, in Liverpool, we were fighting fascism in a small theatre situated half way up Mount Pleasant.

Merseyside Unity Theatre (MUT) was one of a number of national organisations set up to serve the broad labour movement – to make theatre accessible to “the great mass of people” and to use it as a political instrument to bring “new strength to the progressive struggle”.

Formed as the Merseyside Left Theatre in spring 1937, becoming MUT in 1944, it aimed to contribute to the struggle against fascism while supporting Spanish democracy and socialism.

One of its final acts, before its dissolution in the mid-1980s, was to acquire a former synagogue and establish a new theatre within.

This year, the modern Unity celebrates 30 years in its Hope Place home – three decades of major change for the organisation and the city to which it belongs.

“MUT came into the building initially looking for rehearsal room but when they had a look at the ex-synogue it was all stripped out and just screamed theatre,” explains Unity’s artistic director Graeme Phillips.

By the time Phillips joined the organisation in 1982, it had already evolved away from its roots as a producer of left-wing plays and only the name remained.

“The movement had imploded and at time I became involved in the building the group didn’t select the plays in the way that they used to,” he recalls.

“They used to have quite heated committee meetings while they debated the pros and cons of choosing to do this particular play or commission this particular playwright.”

A local government development grant paid for the initial convertion, while National Lottery money helped fund upgrade work in the late-1990s.

While this enabled Unity to expand its programme, the biggest catalyst in turning it into the professional outfit it is today was being made an Annually Funded Organisation.

This meant it would receive a rolling grant from the Arts Council (and now also Liverpool City Council) rather than having to apply on an annual basis.

“With grants coming in the organisation has more or less naturally professionalised and grown in size,” says Phillips.

“It’s still a small venue but there have been times in the past when I’ve run the building on my own and now I’m one of 12 people involved on a daily basis.”

Over the past three decades, Unity has developed a reputation for supporting new talent and giving a platform for experimental work.

Many of those who performed there as fledgling acts have grown into successful companies.

They include Spike Theatre, set up in 1997 to develop a bold style of storytelling using physical creativity, and physical theatre company Tmesis, which organises the annual Physical Fest, bringing together international performers. Both have productions included in this year’s Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse’s spring season.

“We work with a lot of emerging companies to mentor them, give them a safe house in which to do their initial productions and with those that are absolutely determined to professionalise, such as Tmesis and Spike Theatre, be around for them whilst they get through that tricky developmental stage,” explains Phillips.

“I believe quite a lot of the experimentation that eventually makes its way to the bigger stages in the city and also nationally is usually developed on the scale of the venue that we are.

“For example, we would have been right in there many years ago when visual theatre came to the fore and now it’s the kind of staging and approach that informs quite a lot of the major theatres around the country.

“We tend to be on the advance wave of things that are going to influence things much later on.”

lauradavis