Gracies Bar the Art of Entertaining by Gracie Fields
Throughout Victorian Uk, the industrial revolution brought prosperity to industrialists and widespread employment to the working classes. The working conditions were often strenuous and dangerous only by the late 19th century various labour reform laws ensured that safety standards increased while working hours decreased. Normal working people soon constitute themselves with the newfound luxury of leisure fourth dimension. Londoners could attend 1 of the growing number of theatres that were popping up across London's urban sprawl, particularly in the West End. We sifted through the old ticket stubs and operation programmes to shine the spotlight on some of the thou old theatres of London that disappeared equally the city evolved…
West End
Today, many Londoners view Leicester Foursquare equally a grimy tourist location that should be avoided at all costs, but it was in one case the dwelling house of the beautiful Alhambra Theatre. With a large domed roof, flanked past 2 minarets, this opulent Orientalist-manner theatre seriously contrasted in size and style with the surrounding structures of Leicester Square. It started life in 1854 every bit The Royal Panopticon of Scientific discipline and Arts, which sought to educate its visitors with art exhibitions and live scientific experiments. In 1858, information technology reopened merely with the aim to entertain. Acts included trapeze artists, multifariousness bear witness singers and risqué performances of the now infamous Can-Tin. Indeed, the October 1870 Parisian chorus-line was deemed so sexually provocative that the theatre lost its licence. It was only after a tamer deed was discovered — an equestrian ballet, no less — that a new licence was obtained in 1871.
Regardless of scandals, or perhaps because of them (for the theatre's entrance was a notorious location for prostitutes), the theatre remained a popular venue and was even rebuilt following a devastating burn down in 1882. In the 20th century, the Alhambra continued to find success. During the First Globe War comic musical acts were a favourite with the soldiers on leave. After the war, in February 1925, the theatre held the first live radio broadcast of The Royal Diversity Operation attended by the British royal family. Before long after this date, however, live entertainment was eclipsed past the new technology of cinema, and in 1936 the theatre was demolished to brand way for the Odeon Leicester Square, which still stands on the site of the Alhambra and boasts the largest single-screen movie house in the UK.
The original St James's Theatre was a grand neo-classical building located in the wealthy residential district of St James. Opening in December 1835, it would get an of import location in United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland'due south cultural history for the next 100 years. Ten years into the theatre's life, the dandy Victorian author Charles Dickens appeared, somewhat unexpectedly, as i of the ensemble cast in an apprentice performance of Ben Jonson'southward Every Homo in his Sense of humor.
By the 1890s, the theatre had go the favourite venue for the playwright Oscar Wilde, who used St James's phase to debut Lady Windermere's Fan, which premiered on 20 February 1892, and The Importance of Being Earnest three years later on 14 February 1895. It was during the successful run of the latter play that drama occurred outside of the auditorium walls, when the Marquis of Queensbury was forcibly banned from entering the theatre, equally it was believed that he was due to insult Wilde by throwing a boutonniere of rotting vegetables onto the stage mid-functioning. The feud had begun when Wilde became the lover of Queensbury's 25 year-onetime son, escalating shortly after the event at the theatre into a libel trial that ultimately led to Wilde's imprisonment for sodomy.
The theatre survived the scandal and continued to premiere new works by George Bernard Shaw and fifty-fifty adaptations of Agatha Christie novels. It survived the Second World War, sustaining only minor damage during a 1944 raid, before coming under the management of Sir Laurence Olivier and his wife Vivien Leigh. These icons of British theatre brought further acclamation to St James's, starring in critically-acclaimed productions while premiering new works past playwrights such as Terence Rattigan.
Despite these successes, the theatre was forced to close in 1957 as the landowner sold the site to a commercial developer. Vivien Leigh fronted a passionate campaign to protect St James's from the wrecking ball, during which time she marched on Parliament and gained the support of the House of Lords confronting the government. In the post-state of war fervour to rebuild a mod city, however, St James'southward Theatre was demolished and replaced past a mod office building. This function building did acknowledge the history of the site by incorporating relief panels depicting famous names associated with St James'due south Theatre onto the front end-facing balconies, including Wilde and the Oliviers. Ironically, these panels are now hidden down the alleyway between the pub and the 1980s construction that replaced the 1960s offices, showing only how apace London continues to change.
A theatre stood on the n-due east side of the cross-department between the Strand and Aldwych from 1864 until the 1950s. The Strand Musick Hall, as it was originally chosen, was congenital on the site of the original Lyceum Theatre, which relocated to its current location just a stone's throw away on Wellington Street (the one showing The Lion King advertizement infinitum).
Four years after opening, the theatre was rebuilt in a much grander manner and reopened in December 1868 as The Gaiety Theatre, with performances encompassing pantomime, caricatural and operettas. The Gaiety was an important player in the development of the light-hearted musical comedies that succeeded the music hall genre. It was also specially famous for the Gaiety Girls chorus line, who appear to exist the first generation of female person performers to gain social acceptance for their theatrical profession. They were charming, witty and always dressed in the latest fashions simply with modesty that won them much male interest. Many of these actors, in fact, managed to climb the social ladder into the upper class and aristocracy past marrying their wealthy phase-door admirers.
The theatre closed for renovations in the late 1930s but never reopened, as the building suffered extensive harm during the Rush. The bombed theatre was demolished in the 1950s and a large luxury hotel now fills the sizable space on the corner of Aldwych. Before the Gaiety was torn downwards, however, some of the internal fixtures from the auditorium were mysteriously saved and now grace the upstairs bar of The Victoria pub near Lancaster Gate tube.
North London
The housing estate on the corner betwixt St Thomas's Road and Prah Road looks like a fairly typical post-state of war tower block, but its name Vaudeville Court hints at the theatrics that once occurred on the site. Opening in 1910, The Finsbury Park Empire specialised in the variety acts that had go the about pop form of amusement by the early 20th century. The ii,200 capacity venue was built past the Moss Empires theatre chain who owned the London Palladium Theatre. This meant that the theatre was the outset transfer for W-End acts earlier they started their national tours and provided northward London audiences with all the big stars of the day but without the hassle or cost of visiting the W End.
Over the decades when diverseness ruled the British stage, the Finsbury Park Empire played host to famous acts such as Laurel & Hardy, Gracie Fields, Tony Hancock and, later, pop stars such every bit Cliff Richard & The Drifters, and Shirley Bassey. Although pic screenings had featured as part of the theatre's variety acts since the 1920s, commercial picture palace at present eclipsed the variety show format as a more profitable business. The Empire barbarous victim to this general trend and closed to the public in May 1960. In 1961, the theatre was used as a location in the Cliff Richard picture show The Young Ones but this proved to be a swan-song for the venue, which was afterwards bought past Islington Quango and demolished in 1965.
East London
On the northern stretch of Commercial Street between Spitalfields Market place and the Commercial Tavern pub, The Royal Cambridge Music Hall stood equally a typical case of an early on music hall theatre. By the time the theatre opened in 1864, this area of east London already had a loftier proportion of music hall venues to entertain the heavily populated district. At that place was the Britannia in Hoxton, the Shoreditch Empire, the Majestic Pavilion Theatre in Whitechapel (with regular Yiddish performances) and Wilton'south Music Hall on Cable Street, all in close proximity.
Wilton'due south Music Hall is the merely survivor of these early music halls and whatsoever visitor will feel a certain faded grandeur to this 300 chapters theatre. Imagine, then, how the 2,000 chapters of the Majestic Cambridge Music Hall must take felt. The performance programme for Saturday 5 May 1900, available on The East London Theatre Archive's website, highlights how the demand for live diverseness acts fabricated theatres profitable businesses. In this single matinee functioning there are 18 unlike acts listed including comediennes, comedy gymnasts, ballad vocalists and dancers, while the bar offers champagnes and liquors, rather than the staple grains available from the local Truman Brewery.
Fires were a common occurrence in a pre-electric globe that required artificial light for performances. The Purple Cambridge became the victim of 1 such fire in 1896 but, such was the enduring popularity of the form, had already been rebuilt past 1898 to the plans of the famous music hall architect William Finch Hill. The growth of local concern soon came before the pleasure pursuits of workers, however, and in 1936 the theatre was demolished in society to extend the Godfrey Phillips tobacco factory, the remains of which can withal be seen on Jerome Street.
By Joe Carroll
Source: https://londonist.com/2014/06/the-forgotten-great-theatres-of-london
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