Moving stories for London’s fringe theatres

In its 10-year existence, the Arcola Theatre has attracted many rave reviews — but its artistic director, Mehmet Ergen, likes to recall one memorable panning. Tired from the long journey into east London, one dyspeptic critic wrote of his "great dislike for the Arcola Theatre in darkest Dalston. It's a nightmare to get to... on a menacing main street... patrolled by terrifying hooded youths".

Both men will be delighted that the new premises just off bustling Kingsland High Street are right opposite not one but two brightly lit Overground stations — Dalston Kingsland and the recently opened Dalston Junction.

The Arcola's relocation this week is part of a growing trend in London theatre as powerhouse fringe venues have outgrown their original homes and are planning moves to bigger spaces. The Bush Theatre, renowned for new writing and presently situated above an O'Neill's pub on Shepherd's Bush Green, will soon move to nearby Uxbridge Road. Meanwhile, Southwark Playhouse, currently in a rented space in Tooley Street, is looking for premises to expand, and there are rumours that the Menier Chocolate Factory, also in SE1, may develop at its present site.

Ergen proudly shows me around the Arcola's new home in Ashwin Street, a magnificent Victorian building that was formerly the Reeves paint factory — a company founded, as the beautifully painted outside brickwork tells us, in 1766. As he indicates where the stage, rehearsal and office spaces will be, he points to a patch of wall where he will hang the critics' bruising words, laminated and framed, in the bar-café area. I'm not sure whether the charming Istanbul-born director, who possesses a dry wit, is joking.

Ergen acknowledges that moving to the new location — at the centre of the Dalston arts hub, which includes the Rio cinema, Vortex Jazz Club and numerous arty bars and cafés — was prompted by redevelopment but is partly to attract a wider audience. The Arcola's strong local following will be bolstered by those now more able to make the journey from north and south London. "I think women will feel safer," he says, "and we can think of doing more family shows. Also, we're starting at 7.30pm rather than 8pm and people won't have to worry about getting home after longer plays."

The new building has more rehearsal and office spaces (all light and airy, and no longer in a basement), and the two studios have 200 and 100 seats each, up from a combined 200 capacity in Arcola Street. The move has been done on a remarkably tight budget of £250,000: after a "substantial donation" by financial news services company Bloomberg, the theatre launched a public appeal (which is ongoing) for £150,000, which has so far raised £42,000. The shortfall, astonishingly, has been made up by senior members of Arcola's staff remortgaging their homes.

Hackney council has provided the building at a peppercorn rent — "although they are making me spend money all the time," Ergen jokes — but wherever possible existing materials, such as the factory's floorboards, have been incorporated in a sympathetic refurbishment.

Over at the old Shepherd's Bush Library, which has relocated to Westfield shopping centre to make room for the Bush's new home from this autumn, it almost looks as if the theatre could move in tomorrow. Artistic director Josie Rourke and several backroom staff already work from here, a wonderful Victorian red-brick building with an airy Fifties extension. Rourke is reluctant to discuss how much the move will cost but her executive director Angela Bond admits: "In the current climate, we are of course looking to be thrifty and keep costs to a minimum, while ensuring the new building will serve the company well for the future."

The Library is also opposite a Tube station — Shepherd's Bush Market on the Hammersmith and City line — and for the first time since it opened in 1972 (in a room above a pub that used to be Lionel Blair's dance studio) the Bush will have all its office, rehearsal and performance space in one building. Hammersmith and Fulham council is providing the building for a nominal rent and the theatre's capacity will jump from the present 81 to 140.

Both artistic directors must be keen to avoid the experience of the Soho and Hampstead theatres, whose rough and ready charms were lost in transition to bright, shiny new spaces in 2000 and 2003 respectively. And bigger doesn't always mean better, as indifferent reviews and poor houses in both venues attested for some years before they settled into their new homes.

Ergen and Rourke are far too diplomatic to comment on other theatres but keeping the soul of their venues has clearly occupied their thoughts. "I think if it's an organic growth and the choice of productions is right, we will be OK," says Ergen, whose inventive programming routinely attracts starry casts and top directors.