From ITV
In 2000, Lord Lloyd-Webber, who owned sold the Apollo to Nimax in 2005, told The Times: "The Apollo in particular is a shocking place.
"I suggested that both it and the Lyric should be knocked down and replaced by top-quality modern theatres."
The composer and musical theater impresario complained that his plans for black-box auditorium inside the existing plasterwork had been opposed by English Heritage.
To anyone who knows anyone who's tried to improve a listed building, or bring it into use, this is a familiar story. Someone comes up with a reasonably practical solution to improving a building, one that retains most of the character, and it gets opposed by EH. So, maintenance that would normally happen, like stripping down plaster work and redoing it is less likely to happen, because the costs have been raised.
