Gabion: London Theatres 1: "Southbankside" revives Shakespeare's actors' quarter 1/5

London's theatre map is drawn as follows: the West End, the National, the Barbican, and the Fringe. By its nature the Fringe is Protean, taking in everything from pub productions to the Royal Court, Riverside, Almeida, Hampstead, Cottesloe and many other theatres at all points of the compass. But another London cultural and theatre community - a very ancient one - is starting to re-emerge. You could call it Southbankside.

Southbankside mostly keeps its distance from the river, a few streets back. It is bookended by two great old glasshouses, both now being carefully restored: Edwardian Waterloo Station to the west, and mid-Victorian Borough Market, a foodie heaven to the east, where part of the Royal Opera House's Floral Hall is reappearing in an Ł18m expansion scheme. The main thoroughfare of Southbankside is a crosstown route that you will find on no Monopoly board. It starts with the broad thoroughfare of The Cut, which turns into narrower characterful Union Street, threading its way alongside the railway viaducts well south of Tate Modern, keeping its head down, minding its own business.