Scotsman brushes up its Shakespeare for Winton Nightingale
Leading catering design consultancy Winton Nightingale has successfully completed a four-year contract to design and specify the catering and bar function at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s world famous Stratford-on-Avon theatre complex.
Arguably, the home of drama as we know it, the Royal Shakespeare Company has undertaken a ‘Transformation Project’ to marry the best of the past with its ambition to create the finest ambiance for audiences to enjoy Shakespeare.
At the heart of the project is a 1,000 seat thrust stage auditorium, where the audience sits on three sides of the action. New food and drink venues were an integral part of the ‘Transformation Project’ and Winton Nightingale were initially contracted to design, specify and project manage the installation of performance bars, café bar and Green Room in a temporary venue called The Courtyard Theatre. This project completed successfully in Autumn 2006 and Winton Nightingale was then invited to join the Design Team of architects, engineers, theatre consultants and other specialists for the main project developing dramatically expanded and fully accessible public areas with improved facilities for audiences. These include a rooftop Brasserie/restaurant and Cocktail Bar, a Riverside Café and Terrace, four performance bars and a staff restaurant and foyers linking the Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theaters.
With such a prestigious and high profile venue, Winton Nightingale had to specify equipment of the highest quality and turned to Scotsman for the supply of ice making equipment for both the café/restaurant and café/bars.
Nine Scotman EC.86.PWD self-contained cuber machines were supplied; one in each area.
Keith Winton, joint Managing Director of Winton Nightingale commented: We have specified Scotsman Ice Making Equipment on many previous occasions and have an excellent working relationship with their technical department at the UK distributors, Hubbard Ice Systems. We were pleased to be able to incorporate Scotsman machines into our specification for the RSC, Scotsman EC machines that feature pumped waste discharge are extremely valuable when designing to the high standards that clients such as the RSC demand. The EC machines ensure that we can specify the highest quality ice even when the location would normally rule out the installation of a standalone ice machine. Over and above this our previous experience of the high build quality and dependability of Scotsman EC machines mean that we have specified them without any pause for hesitation.”
Current Winton Nightingale projects incorporating similar machines from the Scotsman range include Brent Civic Centre, national Maritime Museum, Everyman Theatre, Liverpool and the New Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury.
In February 2011, the current RSC ensemble will perform the first productions on the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre stage when they return from London's Roundhouse to revive King Lear and Romeo and Juliet.
