Some of the BITE 09 productions are taking place in the Silk Street Theatre. This is apparently in the Guildhall School next door, but accessed via the Barbican. Their latest brochure makes great play of the fact that an interconnecting door, long since kept locked, will be opened for this special occasion. Among others, Cheek By Jowl are doing Andromaque there. Having just booked and seen the seating plan, it looks like a small end-stage set-up with a single block of seats.

Yes, the Barbican's "resident" company Cheek by Jowl aren't even appearing there this year. So, after a couple of years of putting temporary seating on the Barbican stage to try to turn it into a fringe venue they have taken the next logical step. It betrays a hopeless lack of ambition - the Barbican should terminate their residency and (as promised) get Deborah Warner in to stage some proper main house productions.

Well, I suppose they're casting a sort of eruv and extending what is notionally the Barbican a few yards into the building next door. To all intents and purposes they are still "at" the Barbican. I too have always wondered about those Cheek By Jowl reconfigurations, transforming a huge auditorium into a much smaller one. It doesn't bother me too much as I always like seeing reconfigurations but I wonder why they didn't just give CBJ the Pit and fill the main theatre with something else.

NT of Scotland are in the main theatre again in the Spring, this time with Peer Gynt.