BEAM

In Hertford, the county town of Hertfordshire, the Castle Cinema closed in November 1959. The building stood derelict for many years before being demolished. The site was used as a temporary car park until a new civic centre, Castle Hall, was built in the 1970’s. That venue hosted many events, including screenings by a film society, but became ‘tired’ and a replacement was sought.

That arrived in 2010 in the shape of the Hertford Theatre. (I understand there was an economic link with the J. D. Wetherspoon pub circuit, which built ‘The Six Templars’ next to the theatre.)

Aside from ancillary meeting and function rooms, a gallery space and a café/bar the theatre has two auditoriums. The main one has retractable seating and state of the art audio and lighting systems and is used for a wide variety of live events and presentations, with a maximum seating capacity of 400. It also has digital cinema facilities, complete with Dolby surround sound, and hosts a regular film programme (including NT Live and Encore screenings), for which the seating is slightly reduced to 361.

The second auditorium is the fully flexible Studio, which has a sprung dance floor, ballet bars and floor to ceiling mirrors, and is mainly used for classes, workshops and auditions.

The Hertford Theatre was closed in June 2021 in preparation for a fourth entertainment venue to arise on this site. In a very significant transformation, which was budgeted at £20m but ended up (due, apparently, inflation), costing £30m, the entire building in front of the stage was demolished. A two-storey structure replaced the existing single storey venue, with an increased number of public spaces: Stage One, with 547-seats, is the new main auditorium, while the smaller, 151-seat Stage Two is due to open in Spring 2025. Social One, on the first floor, caters for dance and drama schools, and has a fully spung dance floor and mirrored walls, which on the ground floor, Social Two is a general purpose function room.

Whereas films were previously shown in the main auditorium, there are now three dedicated cinema screens. These are accessed from a corridor next to the first-floor bar; their seating capacities are: Screen 1:81-seats, Screen 2: 66-seats and Screen 3: 54-seats.

The name BEAM was inspired by the various definitions of a ‘beam;, including a ray of light, a spotlight, a smile - and even the line “How far that little candle throws its beams!” from “The Merchant of Venice”. Despite the Hertford Theatre closing in 2021, the reconstruction work did not begin until November 2022. The new venue open on 23rd August 2024.

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