Apollo Theatre

Coordinates: 51°30′41″N 0°08′00″W / 51.511472°N 0.133417°W / 51.511472; -0.133417
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This article is about the theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue in the West End of London. For the music hall in New York City, see Apollo Theater. For the theatre across from Victoria station in Westminster, see Apollo Victoria Theatre. For the theatre formerly known as the Hammersmith Odeon, see Hammersmith Apollo. For other uses, see Apollo Theatre (disambiguation).

Apollo Theatre
Lewin Sharp
Website
nimaxtheatres.com/apollo-theatre/

The Apollo Theatre is a

Lewin Sharp for owner Henry Lowenfeld,[3][4] it became the fourth legitimate theatre to be constructed on the street when it opened its doors on 21 February 1901,[4] with the American musical comedy The Belle of Bohemia.[3][4]

History

Construction

Henry Lowenfeld had bought land on the newly created Shaftesbury Avenue at the turn of the 20th century—next door to the Lyric Theatre, which opened in 1888—and as a consequence the Apollo is one of the few theatres in London to be freehold.[3][4]

The only complete theatre design of architect Lewin Sharp,

Louis XIV Style by Hubert van Hooydonk. In keeping with then European style, each level has its own foyer and promenade.[4]

Owing to the death of

Edwardian period.[4] The capacity on the opening night, 21 February 1901,[6] was 893, with a proscenium of 9.14 metres (30.0 ft) wide and 8.89 metres (29.2 ft) deep.[3]

The capacity today is 757 seats,[5] with the balcony on the 3rd tier considered the steepest in London.[4][7]

Operations

Owing to a relatively unsuccessful opening, impresario Tom B. Davis took a lease on the building, and hence management of operations, from 1902.

anteroom installed to the Royal Box.[3] Prince Littler took control of the theatre in 1944.[5]

Bridgepoint Capital in 2000. Nica Burns and Max Weitzenhoffer purchased the theatre and several others in 2005,[7] creating Nimax Theatres, which still owns the theatre.[5]

2013 ceiling collapse

On 19 December 2013, at about 20:15 GMT,[8] 10 square metres (110 sq ft) of the auditorium's ornate plasterwork ceiling collapsed around 40 minutes into a performance of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.[9][10] It brought down a lighting rig and a section of balcony, thereby trapping two people and injuring around 88, including seven seriously. There were 720 people in the audience at the time. The incident was preceded by heavy rain.[8]

The

foyers of the adjacent Gielgud and Queen's theatres,[11] where the emergency services could triage. The London Ambulance Service later stated that they had treated 76 injured people, with 58 taken to four London hospitals, some on commandeered buses.[9] Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust said 34 adults and 5 children were subsequently treated in accident and emergency at St Thomas' Hospital.[9]

The venue reopened on 26 March 2014, with an adaptation of

plaster of Paris to form the ties lashing timbers together, which had probably been in place since the theatre was built.[13][14]

Production history

Souvenir of 300th performance of Véronique at the theatre in 1905

The opening caused a public uproar, with a selected audience for the first performance, on Thursday 21 February 1901, and the first public performance scheduled for 22 February.

musical comedy The Belle of Bohemia,[3] which survived for 72 performances—17 more than it had accomplished when produced on Broadway.[4] The production was followed by John Martin-Harvey's season, including A Cigarette Maker's Romance and The Only Way, an adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities.[3][4]

Ian Hay was the success in 1919.[15]

Flare Path played in 1942.[5]

Control of the theatre transferred to Prince Littler in 1944. John Clements and Kay Hammond starred that year in a revival of Noël Coward's Private Lives, and Margaret Rutherford starred in The Happiest Days of Your Life in 1948, followed by Sybil Thorndike and Lewis Casson in Treasure Hunt, directed by John Gielgud in 1949. After this, Seagulls Over Sorrento ran for over three years beginning in 1950. The theatre's longest run was the comedy Boeing-Boeing, starring Patrick Cargill and David Tomlinson, which opened in 1962 and transferred to the Duchess Theatre in 1965. In 1968 Gielgud starred in Alan Bennett's Forty Years On, and in 1970 he returned in David Storey's Home, with Ralph Richardson. He returned to the theatre in 1988, at the age of 83, in The Best of Friends by Hugh Whitemore.[5]

A number of hit comedies transferred to or from the theatre in the 1970s and 1980s, and other important plays here during the period included Rattigan's

Laurence Olivier Award-winning one-man show, Defending the Caveman in 1999.[5]

Selected post-1999 productions

The facade in 1989, during a production of Thunderbirds FAB

Notes

  1. ^ "Apollo Theatre". nimaxtheatres.com. Retrieved 2 July 2013.
  2. ^ English Heritage listing accessed 28 April 2007
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Apollo Theatre". Arthur Lloyd. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Apollo Theatre, Shaftsbury Ave, London". ThisIsTheatre.com. 22 April 2014. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Apollo Theatre". Nimax Theatres. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
  6. ^ "Apollo Theatre: history". telegraph.co.uk. The Telegraph. 19 December 2013. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
  7. ^
    London Standard
    . 20 December 2013. Retrieved 20 December 2013.
  8. ^ a b "Apollo Theatre balcony collapses". BBC News. 19 December 2013. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
  9. ^ a b c d "Apollo Theatre: Ceiling collapse injures 76 people". BBC News. 19 December 2013. Retrieved 20 December 2013.
  10. ^ "Apollo Theatre Collapse Causes Injuries". news.sky.com. Sky News. 19 December 2013. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
  11. ^ "'Roof collapses' at West End's Apollo Theatre, serious injuries reported". whatsonstage.com. Whats On Stage. 19 December 2013. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
  12. ^ "Apollo Theatre to reopen after ceiling collapse". The Telegraph. 25 February 2014. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  13. ^ Siobhann Tighe (24 March 2014). "Apollo theatre collapse due to 'old' materials". BBC News. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
  14. ^ "Apollo theatre ceiling collapse blamed on failure of old cloth ties". The Guardian. Press Association. 24 March 2014. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
  15. ^ a b c d Weinreb, Ben; Hibbert, Christopher, eds. (1983). The London Encyclopaedia. Macmillan. p. 22. ASIN 0333576888.
  16. ^ a b c d e "History of London's Grade II listed Edwardian building". mirror.co.uk. Daily Mirror. 19 December 2013. Retrieved 20 December 2013.
  17. ^ "The Country Girl". Best of Theatre. Retrieved 12 September 2014.
  18. ^ "Final cast announced for Urinetown at the Apollo Theatre". blog.londonboxoffice.co.uk. London Box Office. 3 September 2014. Retrieved 12 September 2014.
  19. ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved 8 February 2023.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Apollo Theatre, London.

Apollo Theatre Website Nimax Theatres Website


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