The head of London’s busy, brutalist arts complex says she needs funding so urgently that she might even consider giving a sponsor the right to rename it
When an array of Hollywood royalty, from Cillian Murphy to Margot Robbie, arrived at the Royal Festival Hall for this year’s Bafta film awards, they were unaware that it was not just that evening’s nominees who were feeling nervous.
“Our great fear was that Cate Blanchett would be stuck in a lift,” says Elaine Bedell, chief executive of the Southbank Centre, who is responsible for the complex of cultural venues by the Thames in London. “We employed an engineer to be on site all weekend so that, no matter what happened, emergency supplies could be on hand. That is emergency patching and it’s very costly.”
