The history of Strut & Fret is intrinsically linked with the Brisbane Festival. It’s where company founders Scott Maidment and Sarah Stewart first connected in 2000 and it’s where they’ve performed nearly every year since, bringing its Spiegeltent to town to host productions like Blanc de Blanc, The Purple Rabbit and Fear and Delight. It seems fitting, then, that Strut & Fret would choose Brisbane Festival season to open their brand-new theatre The West End Electric – a lavishly accoutred 400-seat wonderland that’s transformed the old Hi-Fi site on Boundary Street in West End.

Much like Strut & Fret’s Sydney-based theatre The Grand Electric, which opened in Surry Hills 18 months ago,  The West End Electric was born out of necessity. When Strut & Fret’s international touring schedule was restricted during the pandemic, the team sought to build a bricks-and-mortar home for when space for the Spiegeltent couldn’t be found – a problem the company encountered last year, when their long-held position at the South Bank Cultural Forecourt was overtaken by the construction of the Neville Bonner Bridge.

“We’re like, where can we play some shows?,” recalls Scott.”And then we literally stumbled across this space a year ago, almost to the day, during Brisbane Festival.”

The site, a short distance from QPAC, Metro Arts and Bille Brown Theatre, seemed ideally positioned to help cement West End and South Brisbane as the city’s theatre district.

“West End is a great mix – it’s not unlike kind of Redfern and Surry Hills in that it has a really raw edge and a great cultural history,” says Scott. “It’s a perfect place for a theatre.”

But The West End Electric isn’t just any theatre. Where most performance spaces are blank canvasses for productions to shape as needed, The West End Electric boasts its own personality – a environment where guests are transported to another place and time, seemingly far removed from the bustle of Brisbane’s inner suburbs.

“The type of theatre that we do is more like an experience and often our audiences aren’t people who think they go to the theatre,” says Scott. “We’re not doing plays – the shows that we put on are more about leaving your everyday experience behind and forgetting about the drudgery of life for a few hours. It’s an escape.”

So, how does one conjure a suitably escapist setting? In Scott and Sarah’s case, they turned to freelance set and costume designer James Browne to head up the venue design. James spoke the same shorthand as Scott and Sarah, having already worked with Strut & Fret on The Grand Electric’s interiors. This time around, however, James was encouraged to try something different and give Brisbane audiences a character-filled space of their own.

“We didn’t want to repeat the same venue again, but we wanted to keep the essence of it and create something brand new for Brisbane and also the world, essentially,” says James. “We really wanted the audiences to feel really engaged from the minute that they walk in, with a feeling and an atmosphere that is very unique and eclectic in many ways.”

As a starting point, James took inspiration from old hotels, bars and restaurants, historical venues, and theatres from around the world, with London’s West End, in particular, influencing the vision. James describes the end product as a hybrid of bohemian aesthetics, imbued with a sense of London grit, carnival roughness and high-end cocktail chic. The venue’s existing industrial elements have been softened with elegant touches – vintage old wares, mood lighting, and a colour palette of blue, white and red. 

“There are passageways, staircases and a hidden bar that then opens up to reveal the bigger picture of the venue, which is a really big surprise and a big spectacle,” James tells us.

So, what can audiences expect to see at The West End Electric? It will be a bit of a mixed bag, according to Scott, with the Strut & Fret team eager to showcase its own sense-enlivening productions alongside other forms of live entertainment.

“When we started The Grand Electric, we were going to do four shows throughout the year and then mix it up with other stuff,” recalls Scott. “We first put on our show Blanc de Blanc and we thought we’d run that for six weeks – it ended up running for 65 weeks. We then also put on comedians, like Rove McManus, Tommy Little and Mel Buttle, over the top.

“We ended up looking at a different model – we’re not trying to book up the year in advance. If a show is going well, it can keep going until the audiences dry up and then we’ll do something else there.”

The West End Electric’s debut show is LIMBO – The Return, a production that features a dazzling mix of circus, acrobatics, cabaret and live music from New York Jank maestro Sxip Shirey. In addition to comedy shows, expect The West End Electric to host productions from other theatre companies, be it boutique musicals or concepts that don’t often make it to the stages of QPAC.

While Brisbane Festival is a thrilling time for Brisbane theatregoers, The West End Electric’s arrival as a permanent addition to the scene is a huge boon for the community.

“I think that no one in Brisbane has ever experienced anything like this,” says James. “It’s not just unique to Brisbane, but I think it’s really unique to all of Australia.”

Head to The West End Electric website for information on current and upcoming shows.