Glasgow's Citizens Theatre to reopen after seven years

The Citizens Theatre has been closed for seven years

Glasgow's Citizens Theatre is to reopen this weekend after a seven-year revamp, which was hit by Covid and skyrocketing costs.

The theatre, in the city's Gorbals area, closed in June 2018 for a refurbishment which was planned to take three years.

The original cost was estimated at £20m but it could end up costing almost double that amount.

A community-led parade will officially mark the reopening on Saturday, along with a series of events and behind-the-scenes tours over the weekend.

The first production in the main auditorium will be Small Acts of Love, about the town of Lockerbie's response to the Pan Am disaster, which will run from 12 September.

A new 150-seat Studio Theatre will open in October.

The theatre closed in 2018 for a refurbishment which was originally planned to take three years

The Citizens Theatre has been a landmark in the Gorbals area of Glasgow since 1945, but the building itself - which is leased from Glasgow City Council - dates back to 1878.

The restoration has maintained the theatre's historic auditorium and its Victorian stage equipment, the oldest surviving in the UK, and wrapped it in a brand-new three-storey building.

The revamp includes a new foyer, improved accessibility, a new bar area and social spaces, with enhanced backstage facilities for performers.

The theatre's historic auditorium has been maintained

The revamp includes a new foyer

Outside the building one of the most notable changes is the return of the six statues that were a fixture of Glasgow's skyline for a century.

The statues of the four Greek muses - Melpomene (tragedy), Thalia (comedy), Euterpe (song and poetry) and Terpsichore (dance) - alongside Shakespeare and Burns - date back to when the building first opened in 1878.

Six statues have been returned to the roof of the building

The statues stood on top of the shared facade between and Citizen and Palace Theatres until 1977

They once stood on the roof of a shared façade between the Citizen and Palace Theatres.

The figures survived a fire in 1973 but the building was condemned in 1977 and they were removed and placed in storage.

By the time the statues were brought to the foyer of the Citizens Theatre in 1989, signs of age were already visible and one of the muses - Thalia - was missing the mask she typically holds.

After a lengthy and painstaking restoration, they have returned to the building's roof.