Scene 1: The Green Room at The Theatre Royal, Newcastle upon Tyne. Alastair Gilmour waits to interview Peter Sarah, the theatre's chief executive.
 He arrives, introduces himself, but rather than sitting down or inviting him to his office, he takes him backstage. He puts some lights on, raises the fire curtain and lets the journalist soak up the atmosphere. Alastair was expecting Peter to pour out a barrage of figures, such as the theatre's £5.2m turnover; its projected figures for the next three years; its need to put 7,000 bums on seats, 36 weeks of the year. Instead of basic business talk, he discovers boundless enthusiasm for every backstage prop and item of costume. Horse's heads, wigs, brilliantly-designed scenery, stage grapes - you name it and Peter Sarah embraces it. He points out the orchestra pit where, with a couple of rows removed from the stalls, 70 musicians can accompany the world's greatest opera and ballet productions. He talks of North-East audiences' artistic knowledge and their love for the 168-year-old building, and the thrill that performers get when they're told they're playing Newcastle and the Theatre Royal in particular. Peter Sarah, it transpires, talks business with the enthusiasm, gusto and passion of a star performer. Scene 2: The Circle.
"I love it here," says Peter, settling into row C. "I originally came for six months and I've been here six years. "I have wonderful staff, they're very talented people and they're very committed. I had never run a building before, but I'd organised a lot of international events. Although the building is 168 years old, it works as well ever - it's very sound, structurally. You couldn't run it if you didn't love it." Peter, Australian by birth, is a music graduate of the University of Western Australia and also studied at the University of London. Back home, he was appointed general manager of The Arts Council of South Australia in 1981 and in 1985 became director of arts and entertainment for the Australian Bicentennial Authority, responsible for directing the national and international arts programme. In 1990, Peter returned to London as chief executive of the Contemporary Dance Trust, and in 1985 was appointed chief executive of The Year of Opera and Musical Theatre in the East of England. He has been chief executive of the Theatre Royal since 1998. He seems just as thrilled to be sitting in the circle for the multi-umpteenth time as he probably was on his first night. He describes the Edwardian plasterwork that grows less and less ornate the higher up the auditorium you go (and the cheaper the seats get). He enthuses over the stage set for the production Kiss Me Kate and talks of performers' energy and sheer hard work. And, you can tell he's been up and down every staircase and through every doorway a thousand times to experience the theatre through the eyes of an audience and to continuously monitor the fabric of a wonderful building. He's almost on first-name terms with a small indent in the floor. "We'll regularly watch a production from the gallery," he says. "We never forget people have paid money to sit here - we're very conscious of the expense they go to and we involve them in how we can improve things. "I talk a lot to the staff about this and everything is taken seriously - everything we do has a direct effect on customers. "Actors love coming here and coming to Newcastle; it's a hot date. They love the nightlife and the cultural scene. Geordie audiences are very warm and very knowledgeable and they'll tell you very quickly if something's not working. The Royal Shakespeare Company has been coming here for 28 years and if a production doesn't quite measure up, they'll tell us and they'll tell the RSC, too. We're lucky here and we're in a buyers' market. Things have improved over the last four or five years and we're a place where audiences want to come and where actors want to come - but there's a danger of laziness in that; people could get a little tired and become complacent. The worst thing that could happen in this building is that we end up believing our own copy." While discussing our vantage point for stage movements, our conversation diversifies into football - Peter has developed into a real fan and Sir Bobby Robson is a regular theatre visitor, as are several Newcastle United players - and even touch on today's fast-food culture where customers now demand snappy service. "People expect smoothness and efficiency," he says. "They expect good service and only notice it when it's not happening, but the standard of customer care has been raised enormously over the last five years. We're in the service sector as well as in entertainment and we ignore that at our peril. The reliance on those bums on seats is never far away from his mind, either. "You couldn't talk about cultural development ten years ago," he says, "but today we talk of culture as being a leader in the North-East's economy. "A regional venue is totally dependent on repeat business and we're very conscious of customer loyalty. We're doing some research at present and what has shown up are the people who have been lifelong customers, such as the retired physician who is 89 and has been coming here since he was three. "You've got to balance the financial side and the artistic side of the business; both need to relate to one another - a 50/50 arrangement - and we need to meet both sides of that financial equation. It's also 50/50 between the populist performances - pantomimes, plays and musicals - and the likes of opera and ballet. "For every pound spent on a ticket, up to a further £11 goes back into the community; that's a big contribution across the region. "We have a healthy balance sheet, but we're under constant pressure to raise our ticket prices. But we want people to come back and back and don't want to start charging people £36 for a Saturday night as they do in Bath, Brighton and Bristol. Ours is about customer loyalty. "Our turnover is £5.2m and we earn 89pc of that through the door. The rest comes from grants from Newcastle City Council and through sponsorship. There's not much room for error and too much subsidy takes you away from your marketplace. "What we have here is a 19th Century setting with 21st Century services - and balance sheets - but we still want to people to experience a magnificent building. Often, when one show finishes, a new one comes in the next day. Last year, we grew audiences by 3pc - 1,500 performers came with 36 productions, but there are 400 local people in that figure, which is great. We have two weeks of very well-established amateur productions, children's theatre and youth drama groups - the more the better; it's their theatre. "Without that level of following, we can't operate and we go dark. We have got to get it right from every point, and there's nothing better than when we get it right; the performers enjoy it and the audiences enjoy it. If it's a good night they come out smiling and hang around longer at the end - on a bad night, the coughing starts early; it's very noticeable. "Good audiences teach us what works." And, to quote from Peter Sarah - you couldn't run it if you didn't love it. Curtain.
* Theatre Royal booking office: 0870 905 5060. Visit www.theatreroyal.co.uk | 
