Andrew Lloyd Webber in secret talks to save ailing Royal Shakespeare Company

Lord Lloyd-Webber, Britain's most successful theatre impresario, is in secret talks that could result in him being cast as the saviour of the Royal Shakespeare Company. The 54-year-old producer of Cats and Starlight Express is in advanced negotiations with the RSC after offering it his showpiece theatre as a permanent new London home, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

A year after it quit its long-term base, the Barbican, and embarked on a disastrous bid to win audiences at other venues in the capital, the RSC is poised to finalise a deal with Lloyd Webber's company, Really Useful Theatres. Its favoured home is the New London, for 21 years the home of Cats, the musical that testified to Lloyd Webber's once undisputed dominion over the West End stage.

If the move goes ahead, it is understood the RSC would be looking to perform there for up to six months a year. Any such deal would amount to a remarkable U-turn for a company which, less than two years ago, announced it no longer wanted a single London home. Its artistic director, Adrian Noble, pledged to abandon the Barbican after 20 years, and adopt a roving presence designed to "find the venue to suit the play".

However, attempts to lure audiences to the Haymarket and the Roundhouse, the converted railway shed in Camden where the former RSC director Peter Brook once staged celebrated productions, proved largely futile.

The Winter's Tale, the first show to be put on at the Roundhouse, sold only 30 per cent of the tickets at some performances. Its failure prompted the RSC's chairman, Lord Alexander, to suggest that stalwart theatregoers were being put off by the venue's "rough" and "alien" surroundings. Mr Noble has since resigned, amid criticism of his decision to leave the Barbican and his proposal to demolish the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, the RSC's Grade II-listed home in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The IoS has learnt that the RSC has secretly drawn up a shortlist of three or four possible new London homes, including the capital's oldest theatre, the Old Vic. However, sources say the New London, in Covent Garden, is the clear front-runner. One well-placed West End insider said: "They have been talking to Really Useful Theatres for some time. If I had to put any money down, it would definitely go on the New London."

Should such a move go ahead, it is not only the RSC that would benefit. It would also provide a much-needed fillip for Lloyd Webber, whose slow decline as master of the West End was widely predicted when Cats closed after two decades and 8,949 performances last May. Since then, the 30-year-old, 1,102-seat capacity theatre has been only sporadically occupied. It is currently staging the South African musical Umoja, which closes next month.

A spokeswoman for Really Useful Theatres declined to comment, but sources said negotiations were at an advanced stage. Chris Foy, the RSC's managing director, confirmed the company had come round to the idea of returning to a permanent London base. No final decision would be made until the arrival of the company's new artistic director, Michael Boyd, in March.

"We are looking at a small number of venues and discussing the possibility of forming an ongoing relationship with them, with a view to getting a decision in principle, probably by Easter," he said. The decision to look for a new base was sparked by feedback from loyal theatregoers who stayed away from performances at the Roundhouse. While the experimental shows attracted new, younger audiences, they did not woo stalwart RSC fans.

"We've become unstuck from some of the people who are our important established audiences," Mr Foy said. However, he insisted the RSC was not seeking to enter into as "rigid" an arrangement as the one it had with the Barbican, where it kept offices all year round. Mr Foy confirmed the RSC might be based in London for up to six months of the year, but added: "I don't think we'd want our contract to specify that we were there for the same period every year."

Ironically, news of the RSC's putative move to a new base comes amid signs that its London odyssey is finally paying dividends. Bookings for its stage version of Salman Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children, which started previewsat the Barbican yesterday, are said to be better than those for previous RSC plays at the venue.