00:00Hello and welcome to Manchester World. My name's Theo Houstonbets and today we're going to be
00:03traveling back into the past with a closer look at one of Manchester's most important and impressive
00:07historical buildings. Now we've done some pieces like this before where you as an audience have
00:12had to deal with me talking at you for three minutes but this story really is one that's
00:15worth listening to and it actually suits this form of storytelling too considering that it's
00:20now one of the most important creative hubs in the whole of Manchester. Yes we're talking about
00:25the Royal Exchange Theatre. It's right in the centre of the city of Manchester and it's home
00:29to some of the most exciting brilliant and cutting-edge theatrical performances certainly
00:32that I've ever seen. From the excellent Maxime Peake performing as Hamlet or as Blanche Dubois
00:37to Don Warrington's stunning turns in Death of a Salesman and King Lear. This stage can
00:41draw some of the premier talents of the English acting crowd and it's stunning in the round
00:45style stage means the whole audience gets to bring something different away from each performance.
00:49While now the halls of this brilliant building echo with the claps and cheers after a show,
00:54once it was filled with the sound of bartering and yelling because as the name suggests it
00:57used to be the site of a commodities exchange, a place where cotton and textiles were traded
01:01dating all the way back to 1809. So let's try and cast our mind back that far. King George
01:07III was on the throne and Manchester was experiencing an economic boom. While the banning of the transatlantic
01:11slade trade had come a few years earlier, Manchester was now an industrial leader in the cotton industry,
01:15churning out remarkable amounts of goods and building up towards being the first true industrial
01:20city. Industry was thriving and the city was becoming richer but the cotton exchange as it was called
01:25then wasn't quite big enough to sustain the trade passing through. In 1851 Queen Victoria
01:30granted the exchange the title of the Manchester Royal Exchange and in 1967 the old building
01:35was demolished and a newer, larger space was erected. By 1874 work was completed and around
01:4011,000 cotton merchants would arrive at the nicknamed Cottonopolis to do trade and business twice
01:45a week. Now back to the modern day and this building has survived a lot. It had another rebuild
01:49in 1914 and in 1940 the Manchester Blitz effectively put an end to its life as an industry leader.
01:56It could no longer sustain its status as a world leader and in 1968 it shut its doors of trading
02:02for the last time. In fact you can still see the original trading board in the theatre which
02:06shows the closing figures for that day's trade. Now demolition hung over the building like a
02:10Victorian ghost but like all ghouls and scary things that idea was vanquished by a blinding
02:14new idea. In 1973 a theatre company took up residency and it has never looked back. Despite
02:20the devastation of an IRA bomb back in 1996 the theatre really has gone from strength to strength.
02:25It's now no longer just a place to watch entertaining shows it's home to some delightful refreshment
02:30stands and bars and is a must-see for each tourist that passes through the city. So now here we are in
02:34the modern day with a cup of coffee in hand and the hustle and bustle of cotton trading being replaced
02:38by the quiet wandering of creatives and tourists. This isn't just a historical building it's a thoroughly
02:43modern one and if anyone ever asks what Manchester is point to this as an example. The one time most
02:48important industrial trading centre in the UK turning into one of the best homes for creativity
02:53in the country. As Manx we make do and there's always something new around the corner even for a
02:57building such as this.
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