Can the Roundhouse rise again?

Torquil Norman in front of the Roundhouse ruin

10 April 2012

In 1996 Torquil Norman was about to fly a 1936 de Havilland Dragonfly home from Newfoundland when he heard that the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm was for sale. Very near where he lived, it had been empty for 17 years and he bought it for £3 million.

"Everyone said: 'You're completely mad - the place is doomed, it's a white elephant, you'll lose your shirt and it will be a total bloody disaster.'" Undeterred by such gloomy predictions, he set about raising the money.

Contributing £6.5 million from his own charitable trust (mostly by way of endowment), he had to raise another £28 million and is more than three-quarters of the way there. Building work starts next Wednesday, and should be finished by autumn next year.

The Roundhouse has had many changes of use since Robert Stephenson built it in 1846 to service the freight trains that ran between London and Birmingham.

In the Sixties and Seventies, huge audiences filled the vast circular space on the first floor to see everyone from the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Elton John to Arnold Wesker and RD Laing. Peter Brook directed there, and so did Jonathan Miller.

Oh! Calcutta! was a big hit in 1970. But despite a production by the Argentine company De La Guarda in 1999 that ran for 11 months, the Roundhouse seemed to fall on hard times.

Then comes Torquil Norman to the rescue. "The beauty of it," he says, "was made clear to me by Richard Eyre. He said: 'Don't turn it into a theatre. It's a perfect space and every director will want to use it differently.'" It will accommodate 3,300 people standing or 1,800 seated for anything from opera to rock music to visiting theatre productions and circus.

But it is what will happen on the ground floor that excites Norman most. He will open the Creative Centre, offering workshops and access to equipment to 13- to 25-year-olds.

Up to 10,000 young people a year will be able to participate in music, dance, poetry, painting, film, radio broadcasting, TV, video and fashion workshops and projects. "It's for kids from all backgrounds," he says, "particularly marginalised kids who can't get their hands on help or equipment.

"My generation has betrayed young people. They've had a bad deal: playing fields have been sold off, there is very little music or acting because all the emphasis is on passing exams and there is nowhere for the creative side of the brain to go.

When you work with young people, you notice that academic strength has nothing to do with imagination and creativity. Kids who are creative are not necessarily clever. They think laterally, not logically. They may be no good at passing exams. They're bored and many of them are on the streets creating mayhem."

Norman is 71 and 6ft 7in tall. He has a courteous charm that you might expect from his background: Eton (Captain of Boats, President of Pop), Cambridge (Law), Harvard, JP Morgan, Hill Samuel. One would never guess that he made his fortune in toys.

First there was the The Big Yellow Teapot in which lived the Teapot family with Sugarlump, the dog. Then came Polly Pocket, a doll oneinch high, who lived in something the size of a powder compact. "You could open it and see the whole scene - beds, tables with knives and forks, taps on the bath, 54 hand-spray operations, all different colours, made in China and retailing for £5.99."

His pride in the product is evident. "I had important qualities for toy-making," he says, "a mental age of seven, an eye for detail and my own research team at home of five children under seven."

His wife, Anne, is an artist and she rather encouraged writing on the wall, which made it difficult for them to stay in other people's houses. So Norman bought a large bus and designed it to take a seven-foot bed in the back, five bunk beds in the middle, a kitchen range and other necessities - like a life-size Polly Pocket - and the family travelled all over Europe.

It was Anne who was responsible for setting up what Norman calls "my little charity". She kept giving his money away to good causes. "I decided there must be a better way to do this. I had a toy company called Bluebird and we decided to take a chunk of the shares and put it into a charity." When he retired in 1995, after 18 years in toys, the charity was worth more than £6 million.

He would love to see projects like The Roundhouse all over the country, dealing directly with the problem of young people on the streets. "There are thousands of them within a few miles of where I live, with nothing to do; when I was young, there was lots going on."

Flying, mostly, it seems. "My dad built Heston aerodrome, and my two brothers and I were brought up on the apron where Heston Service Station is now, on the M4.

He built us a little bi-plane pedal car with G-WAWP painted on the side - God Willing and Weather Permitting - all very old-fashioned stuff." He did his National Service as a naval pilot in the Fleet Air Arm, somehow managing to disguise the fact that he was four inches too tall.

He has rebuilt three old de Havillands, a Dragon, Dragonfly and Tiger Moth to accommodate his long legs, and he has a Cessna 180, which he uses to get about in. "I suppose I'm an unreconstructed public schoolboy, but flying is my abiding love. It keeps me sane. Like fishing, it's totally absorbing."

Last year he and a friend packed two Tiger Moths into boxes and sent them off to New Zealand. "When we got there we put the wings back on and had a spectacular two weeks flying in the mountains." All pilots, he says, are mildly unhinged.

In a way, he proves his own theory. It's flying not passing exams that taught him to concentrate. And rowing? " Sitting in a race and performing over a long distance does form your character."

It may even come in handy in the small matter of raising the final few million. "I don't give up easy. I've learned one thing in life: if you aren't in the race at the end, you have no chance of winning it."

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