Theatre audiences often go home with a new ­experience, but fans of one of Scotland's most famous theatre, the Citizens in ­Glasgow, will soon be able to go home with a part of the building itself.

As part of the historic theatre's multi-million pound revamp, the seating is being upgraded and the venue is now selling seats off for £25 each.

New ones will start to be installed next week after more than £228,000 was raised in the ongoing Seat Campaign, with the final target of £314,000 still to be reached.

Comedian Jonathan Watson, famous for his impressions in BBC Scotland's Only An Excuse show is believed to have already reserved his own little slice of history by bagging two seats.

The current ones going on sale are cinema seats which have less than ideal sight-lines, and many are broken or otherwise dilapidated.

The theatre is now investing in new seats from auditorium seating firm Race Furniture and are allowing audiences and supporters the chance to own their own bit of the theatre's illustrious history.

The condition of their precedessors is "variable", according to Graham ­Sutherland, head of ­production at the theatre, but they can be bought in singles or in rows or two or three.

They will be sold on a first come, first served basis on August 17, on a Seat Sale Day at the theatre between 11am and 4pm. The seats are not free standing, so new owners will have to screw them into the floor at home, as they are in the theatre, or find another way of installing them in a domestic environment. Technical staff on the day of the sale will be on hand to help people put them in cars, as they are heavy.

It is not known if any of the more famous alumni of the Gorbals theatre have bought or asked for a seat.

Over the years, the theatre has produced a stellar cast of theatrical alumni, with actors such as Rupert Everett, Tim Roth, Gary Oldman, Pierce Brosnan, Alan Rickman and Glenda Jackson treading its boards, as well as Robbie Coltrane, Stanley Baxter, Leonard Rossiter and Moira Shearer, among many others.

The theatre is planning a major £16m redevelopment.

The move will allow the Citizens to overhaul its offices, backstage areas and utilities using a design by Edinburgh-based architects Bennetts Associates, which will again reveal the original stone walls of the Victorian theatre.

Mr Sutherland said: "The seats have needed to be changed for a while.

"They were installed in 1989 and are actually cinema seats, not theatre seats.

"Some of them are not ­flipping up now, which from a building control point of view is not good. They have been there a long time now and they have had a good innings, the way they are built, the parts that are broken are not replaceable.

"The new seats will have better sight lines and wheelchair access, and after working with the architects, we will have about 46 more

"There seems to be a mix of reasons that people want them, from nostalgia, because the Citizen's means so much to them.

"For some reason, a lot of people are expressing that they would like a seat to put in their halls, to sit on while they put on shoes."