Is it the end for Devon"s Exeter Northcott theatre? Stage

Exeter"s Northcott entertainment – enlightenment cabinet member Ben Bradshaw"s internal – has called in the administrators after curators were told it was insolvent.

Chairman Geoff Myers pronounced they had "no choice" when presented with the ultimate monetary report last night. "We took this preference with a complicated heart," he added.

It is the ultimate reversal for the Devon theatre, that majority observers had insincere was putting the troubles at the back of it. In Dec 2007, shortly after being at length refurbished, Exeter was in jeopardy with carrying the Arts Council appropriation cut since the assembly was as well narrow, but was reprieved at the last notation and had been thought to be you do well, both artistically and at the box office.

It seems that the complaint this competence competence be as paltry as bad accounting practices.

A mouthpiece for Arts Council England pronounced the organization deliberate the preference to move in administrators premature."We have been operative with the new government over the last dual years to enlarge the theatre"s programming and enlarge the audiences," she said.

"Despite this tough work, a bequest of monetary problems has not long ago come to light. The Arts Council has been operative with the Northcott"s new government to assimilate the border of these problems, but this work is not nonetheless complete."

Myers pronounced he had been speedy by the reply of stakeholders such as the city council, Exeter university and ACE. All will do what they can to safeguard the Northcott stays a opening venue, he said.

The Northcott, an old stamping belligerent of National Theatre executive Nicholas Hytner, is one of a small series of informal theatres that have strike the buffers in new years. The Hackney Empire in easterly London went dim recently, and is not approaching to free until the winter.

Going in to administration department does not indispensably meant the finish – theatres such as the Bristol Old Vic and Derby Playhouse have both reopened after going dim – but it does poise poignant challenges.

In a statement, the enlightenment cabinet member said: "Arts Council England is operative urgently with the entertainment and director to secure the stream programme and the long-term destiny of the entertainment at the Northcott."