Does Sadler’s Wells really need a lavish new building?

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Arts Council England may be successfully clobbering the poor old genre of opera into the ground, but its sister art dance continues to be nurtured ever more generously, and the London scene is as ebulliently youthful and healthily various as it’s ever been. At the top end there’s the Royal Ballet, currently a match for any company in the world, and English National Ballet, performing to an impressive standard too. Sadler’s Wells thrives, with a rich programme embracing Matthew Bourne’s pantos and all sorts from Rambert and Akram Khan to hip hop and flamenco, alongside a succession of foreign visitors who fill the stage with mud or stand on their heads in the nude. At the Place, the dance hub near Euston, you can take classes or catch the first choreographic efforts of any number of rookie practitioners. The Barbican and South Bank Centre increasingly feature enticing dance offerings too.

But with budgets being squeezed ever tighter, I do wonder if some irrational exuberance might end up bursting the bubble. Not content with thriving, Sadler’s Wells has been empire building. To add to its portfolio of a main theatre and studio space in Islington and its lease on the Peacock Theatre in Holborn, it has now inaugurated a magnificent new building in the Olympic Park development in Stratford. Designed in brick by the Irish partnership of O’Donnell + Tuomey, it will deservedly win awards for its cool elegance and finish. As well as expansive foyers and a single-tier auditorium seating 550, there are six studios for community hire, rehearsals, workshops and so forth.