Palace Theatre, London
Royal English Opera House Palace Theatre of Varieties | |
Thomas Edward Collcutt | |
Website | |
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Palace Theatre official website |
The Palace Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster in London. Its red-brick facade dominates the west side of Cambridge Circus behind a small plaza near the intersection of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road. The Palace Theatre seats 1,400.
In 1925, the
From June 2016, the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child ran at the theatre until performances were suspended in March 2020 owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. The play returned to the stage on 14 October 2021, after a 19-month break.
History
Early years
Commissioned by impresario
The theatre opened as the Royal English Opera House in January 1891 with
The theatre re-opened in November 1891, with André Messager's La Basoche (with David Bispham in his first London stage performance) at first alternating in repertory with Ivanhoe, and then La Basoche alone, closing in January 1892. Carte had no other works ready, and so he leased the theatre to Sarah Bernhardt for a season, and after months of negotiation he sold the opera house at a loss to the new Palace Theatre Company, headed by Sir Augustus Harris.[5] The architect Walter Emden converted the opera house into a grand and ornate music hall, which was renamed the Palace Theatre of Varieties.[6] Harris's opening programme included a lavish and highly praised ballet, with music by Gaston Serpette;[5][7] he engaged some of the best variety turns then available,[7] before handing over the day-to-day running of the theatre to Charles Morton, known as the "Father of the Music Halls", whose biographers record:
Denied permission by the
20th century
In 1904, Morton was succeeded as manager by his deputy,
The name of the theatre was finally changed to The Palace Theatre in 1911.
On 11 March 1925, the
In 1939–1940, Cicely Courtneidge and Jack Hulbert appeared at the Palace in Under Your Hat, a comedy spy story co-written by Hulbert, with music and lyrics by Vivian Ellis, which ran for 512 performances.[20][21] Later musical theatre works that played with success at the theatre included Song of Norway (1946, 525 performances),[21] King's Rhapsody (1949, 841 performances),[22] Where's Charley? (1958, 380 performances),[23] and Flower Drum Song (1960)[24] among others.[25] The Entertainer, starring Laurence Olivier, transferred to the theatre from the Royal Court Theatre in 1957.[25] In the 1960s, The Sound of Music ran for 2,386 performances, from 1961,[26] and Cabaret followed in 1968 (336 performances).[27] The Danny La Rue revue Danny at the Palace (1970) ran for 811 performances.[27] The theatre was Grade II*listed by English Heritage in June 1960.[28]
Two exceptional runs took place at the Palace during the last decades of the 20th century: Jesus Christ Superstar (3,358 performances from 1972 to 1980) and Les Misérables, which played at the theatre for nineteen years after moving from the Barbican Centre on 4 December 1985. The production moved to the Queen's Theatre in April 2004 to continue its record-setting run. In between, Song and Dance played from 1982 to 1984. In 1983, Andrew Lloyd Webber purchased the theatre for £1.3 million and began a series of renovations to the auditorium. He restored the theatre's facade, later commenting: "I removed the huge neon sign that defaced the glorious terracotta exterior, much to the chagrin of West End producers who told me I had removed the greatest theatre advertising sight in London."[29]
21st century
After Les Misérables left the theatre in 2004, Lloyd Webber refurbished and restored the auditorium and front of the house, removing the paint that covered the onyx and Italian marble.
In popular culture
In the 1977
Nearby tube stations
- Leicester Square
- Tottenham Court Road
Notes, references and sources
Notes
- ^ The Oxford English Dictionary defines such a promenade as "An area without seats at a theatre or concert venue; specifically a gallery at a music hall, commonly thought to be frequented by prostitutes and their clients".[8]
References
- ^ Arthurlloyd.co.uk feature on the theatre Archived 13 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine, p. 5. Retrieved 18 October 2011
- ^ Pearson, p. 88
- ^ Hermann Klein's 1903 description of Ivanhoe Archived 6 October 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, 3 October 2003. Retrieved 12 April 2012
- ^ Wood, p. 43
- ^ a b "Palace Theatre", The Times, 12 December 1892, p. 7
- ^ "Palace Theatre of Varieties", The Morning Post, 10 December 1892, p. 3
- ^ a b c Morton and Newton, p. 181
- ^ "promenade, n.", OED Online, Oxford University Press, March 2020. Retrieved 11 May 2020)
- ^ Weightman, pp. 94–95
- ^ "Features: Victorian 'Cinemas'". British Film Institute. 1996. Retrieved 11 April 2012.
- ^ Mander and Mitchenson, p. 124
- ^ Palace Theatre, ArthurLloyd.co.uk. Retrieved 18 October 2011
- ^ "In Birdland (1907)". WildFilmHistory. Retrieved 25 September 2010.
- ISBN 978-0859892964.
- ^ Palace Theatre Feature Archived 13 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Page about the Royal Command Performance". Archived from the original on 7 September 2008. Retrieved 8 January 2008.
- ^ Ellacott, Vivyan. "Palace Theatre, Cambridge Circus", London Theatres Encyclopaedia, Over the Footlights: A History. Retrieved 18 June 2014
- ^ Bader, p. 447
- ^ "An Offer of Purchase", The Times, 27 May 1930, p. 12
- ^ Pepys-Whiteley, D. "Courtneidge, Dame (Esmerelda) Cicely (1893–1980)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011. Retrieved 8 August 2011 (subscription required)
- ^ a b Herbert, p. 1282
- ^ Herbert, p. 1281
- ^ Gaye, p. 1540
- ^ Gaye, p. 1531
- ^ a b Mander and Mitchenson, p. 125
- ^ Herbert, p. 1280
- ^ a b Herbert, p. 1313
- ^ "Details for IoE Listing 208945". historicengland.org.uk. Retrieved 11 April 2012.
- ^ a b c Andrew Gans (11 April 2012). "Andrew Lloyd Webber Sells London's Palace Theatre". Playbill. Playbill.com. Archived from the original on 14 April 2012. Retrieved 11 April 2012.
- ^ "Singing in the Rain Extends Booking through February 2013". Palace Theatre. Retrieved 12 July 2012.
- ^ Fisher, Philip. "Great West End Theatres", British Theatre Guide, 19 February 2012
- ^ "The Commitments to close in November", Whatsonstage.com, 21 May 2015
- ^ "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child". Harry Potter The Play. harrypottertheplaylondon.com. 2016. Retrieved 26 July 2016.
- ^ "'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' Begins Previews in London, as Magic Continues". The New York Times. 7 June 2016. Retrieved 29 June 2016.
- ^ "How to get tickets to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child". whatsonstage.com. 23 October 2015. Retrieved 23 October 2015.
- ^ Lefkowitz, Andy. "All Theaters in London's West End to Close Due to COVID-19", Broadway.com, 16 March 2020
- ^ "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child". Twitter. 14 October 2021. Retrieved 16 October 2021.
- ^ Mento, Charles. "The Talons of Weng-Chiang". Doctor Who Reference Guide. Retrieved 30 August 2008.
- ^ Girvan, Ray. "Full Dark House", JSBookReader, 4 May 2012
Sources
- Gaye, Freda, ed. (1967). Who's Who in the Theatre (fourteenth ed.). London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons. OCLC 5997224.
- Herbert, Ian, ed. (1977). Who's Who in the Theatre (sixteenth ed.). London and Detroit: Pitman Publishing and Gale Research. ISBN 978-0-273-00163-8.
- Bader, Robert S. (2016). Four of the Three Musketeers; the Marx Brothers on Stage. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press. ISBN 978-0810134164.
- OCLC 1110747260.
- Morton, William; Henry Chance Newton (1905). Sixty Years' Stage Service: Being a Record of the Life of Charles Morton. London: Gale and Polden. OCLC 5317613.
- ISBN 978-1-84232-167-6.
- ISBN 978-1-85585-131-3.
- OCLC 614156984.