Jonathan Flowers (0,0,0,0)

The – mildly cryptic – words above are engraved in a plaque on the floor of the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester.

This is why…

Until I came to University in Manchester I hadn’t been to a real theatre – it wasn’t something which was a financial priority in my family growing up, and I had a sense that theatre was for posh people.  (I was not posh).  

When some of my new friends asked if I’d like to come I was interested but concerned it would be really expensive and that I’d have to wear a suit!  

Instead they introduced me to the idea of queueing up on Saturday morning for cheap (but brilliant) banquette seats – right down at the edge of the stage – and of course I was delighted to know my jeans were fine.  

So I was introduced to theatre by a ring-side seat for a performance of Moby Dick in – I guess it would have been 1983 or ’84.  That performance made spectacular use of the theatre in the round, including in the final sequence having an inflatable in the centre which was rapidly expanded to serve as the back of the whale!  It was so thrillingly close and immediate, so well done – and I could SMELL the actors – it absolutely blew my mind and made me an instant convert to the theatre.  

The Royal Exchange is the centre of my theatrical universe – nowhere else has had the same effect.  And that was the first moment of my love for the theatre.  

Now, I was doing Maths at Manchester, and in Maths the very central point of a 3 dimensional world  – called the origin – has coordinates of (0,0,0) and, if you are adding a time dimension, the moment when time begins is time zero, so the space-time coordinates of the Royal Exchange for me, the origin of my theatrical universe and the beginning of it all – are unquestionably (0,0,0,0).