THE Octagon Theatre might be closed and in darkness at present, but one woman has ensured that the theatre has still managed to spread some joy during the summer.

Audiences have marvelled at Gulliver’s Travels, played in the open air in Queens Park, complete with an eight-metre tall puppet, as the Octagon was forced onto the road by a major refurbishment.

The scope and ambition of the production was impressive, but it didn’t faze artistic director Elizabeth Newman.

But then, not much daunts Elizabeth.

And now that this diminutive force of nature is stepping down from her role at the Octagon to take up a new appointment at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre in Scotland, it’s fitting to pay tribute to the woman from south London who has made a huge difference to the Arts in Bolton.

As we talked this week about her time in Bolton and how much she loves the town and its people, Elizabeth’s abiding passion (as well as directing the best productions she can) is getting the local community involved in the Arts.

Many still have the perception that theatre in general is exclusive, not for them and prohibitively expensive.

The cost is certainly true if you are looking to book tickets to a show in London. A single seat can be more than £100; four or five hundred quid is unthinkable for a night out for most families.

But the Octagon’s prices compare very favourably with tickets for any other live event you might go to (a concert or a football match for example).

During the three years Elizabeth has been at the helm, she has been evangelistic in her attempts to get the community involved.

Youth theatre sessions, activities for people of all ages with learning difficulties, getting schools involved, developing new talent, collaborating with the University of Bolton – all these initiatives are hugely important to Elizabeth, who wants the Octagon to be a people’s theatre.

She and her team’s drive to make the Octagon as inclusive and inviting as possible to as many age ranges and backgrounds has been a success, but let’s not forget that the productions she has directed have also been outstanding.

To name a few: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Singin’ in the Rain (a personal favourite), Duet for One, Summer Holiday, Gulliver’s Travels – the diversity of each has been astonishing.

Being artistic director and directing, at the same time as running programmes for the wider community, is a challenging job. Just after Gulliver’s Travels began its run, one of the actors was taken ill, which meant a hasty scramble to recast and Elizabeth herself standing in temporarily.

But she retained some much-needed perspective when asked how stressful that had been.

Her reply: “Well it was difficult, but we managed and it’s not as if we working down the pit or in a cotton mill for a living is it?”

We wish Elizabeth well in her new adventure north of the border.

In her tenure at the Octagon, she has helped to build on the excellent foundations laid by her predecessor and made the theatre more accessible than ever.

IAN SAVAGE