A theatre company specialising in historical productions has lost all of its vintage costumes, custom-made props and stage equipment in a huge storage unit fire at the weekend.
Firefighters were called to the Armadillo Self Storage Unit at Stanley Green Business Park in Cheadle at around 1am on Saturday morning (February 26) following reports of a fire.
Around 130 firefighters from stations around Greater Manchester and Cheshire tackled the huge blaze for hours before it was deemed unsafe and demolished.
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Time & Again Theatre was one of the businesses to own a unit at the business park, and used the space to store all of their costumes, props and lighting and sound equipment used when touring productions across the country.
Bosses at the company, based in Wilmslow but featuring cast and crew from around Manchester, said they were devastated by the fire.
“The four of us that basically run the theatre company were all at my house when we found out on Saturday morning,” Laura Crow, writer, producer and founder, told the M.E.N.
“We got confirmation at about 10am to say that everything had been lost.
“Our entire theatre company’s things were in that unit - all of our sets, our costumes, our equipment.
“We’re a company that focuses on historical shows so a lot of our items were vintage or made by hand. They’re not really things you can just buy off the rack.
“The fact that most of these are hard to find or take a long time to make is what’s hit us the hardest.”
Armadillo Self Storage bosses revealed Saturday’s fire had caused 'significant destruction of the building and most contents’.
Greater Manchester Police said it was now treating the incident as suspected arson and had launched an investigation.
Laura was able to visit the site on Sunday in order to see the damage for herself.
“There was nothing to salvage,” she explained.
“I think going there was helpful for us in a way as we had a little bit of hope that maybe something had survived.
“But when we were there and saw all the twisted metal on the floor, we knew there was no way the costumes would have made it.”
Amongst the items lost were custom theatre flats, more than 50 period costumes, unique vintage items and a custom-built Blackburn Monoplane, which was used in their award-winning show Clouds.
Laura said: “We built that monoplane in my living room for our play Clouds, which is set in the Edwardian era about a female pilot and ties into the Suffragette movement.
“The plane was completely built by us and took a lot of effort. It was designed so it could be taken apart really quickly on stage, so that’s a big loss for us.”
The company, which was set up in 2017, is now faced with a tough few months ahead as they gear up to hit the road in June and over the summer.
With no props, costumes and equipment, they have now launched a fundraiser in a bid to help get them back on track.
“We’ve really struggled with the pandemic,” Laura said. “We had tours booked for 2020 and we had all of that cancelled but we managed to keep going with little things to sustain ourselves.
“We had just started performing again last year and 2022 was going to be the year where we got back on our feet again properly. Most of the things in our unit were for shows that were still touring.
“We’re doing a show at the Edinburgh Fringe this summer and we had only just sorted all the costumes for that - they’ve never even made it onto the stage.”
The fundraiser is already close to meeting its target of £3,000, but Laura says it will cost much more than that to get them back on their feet.
“We’ve been absolutely blown away by people’s kindness.
“Other theatre companies have said they will lend us props and costumes, which has been really nice.
“What we’ve lost is much more than £3,000 but it will help us to make sure we can do our shows in June and Edinburgh over the summer.
“We do a lot of rural touring where we visit places in the sticks that don’t have access to theatres so having our own lighting and sound equipment is really important.
“People’s generosity from this fundraiser will help us get some equipment, costumes and props and get back on track.
“We’re absolutely determined to make it back on to the stage.”
