Kilburn's Tricycle relaunches as Kiln theatre with Zadie Smith's White Teeth

Artistic director Indhu Rubasingham explains how, after its £7m facelift, the theatre will give a platform to ‘stories we don’t hear’

In the six years since Indhu Rubasingham was appointed its artistic director, the Tricycle theatre has achieved three West End transfers, two Olivier awards, a Liberty human rights award and the distinction of mentoring hundreds of London’s teenage refugees through its Mind the Gap programme. Now, almost two years since it closed for a £7m facelift, the building is preparing for its most dramatic flourish. The Tricycle is no more: Rubasingham is relaunching it as the Kiln theatre.

“It’s an opportunity we could only take at this moment,” she says, visibly excited as she gives me a hard-hats-and-fluoro-tabards tour of the refurbished space, which is still five months from being curtain-ready. “It’s been bubbling in my head and I never thought it would happen but it’s the next part of the story for this building. Kiln as a word is associative with Kilburn. Kilns have a relationship with cultures across the world, they are a physical thing, melting pots associated with heat and cooking.”

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