Haymarket Theatre
Encyclopedia
The Theatre Royal Haymarket (also known as Haymarket Theatre or the Little Theatre) is a West End theatre
in the Haymarket
in the City of Westminster
which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use. Samuel Foote
acquired the lease in 1747, and in 1766 he gained a royal patent
to play legitimate drama (meaning spoken drama, as opposed to opera, concerts or plays with music) in the summer months. The original building was a little further north in the same street. It has been at its current location since 1821, when it was redesigned by John Nash
. It is a Grade I listed building, with a seating capacity
of 888. The freehold of the theatre is owned by the Crown Estate
.
The Haymarket has been the site of a significant innovation in theatre. In 1873, it was the venue for the first scheduled matinée performance, establishing a custom soon followed in theatres everywhere.
Its managers have included Benjamin Nottingham Webster
, John Baldwin Buckstone
, Squire Bancroft
, Cyril Maude
, Herbert Beerbohm Tree
, and John Sleeper Clarke
, brother-in-law of John Wilkes Booth
, who quit America after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
. Famous actors who débuted at the theatre included Robert William Elliston
(1774–1831) and John Liston
(1776–1846).
. The theatre cost £1000 to build, with a further £500 expended on decorations, scenery and costumes. It opened on December 29, 1720, with a French play La Fille a la Morte, ou le Badeaut de Paris performed by a company later known as 'The French Comedians of His Grace the Duke of Montague'. Potter's speculation was known as The New French Theatre.
The theatre's first major success was a 1729 production of a play by Samuel Johnson
of Cheshire
, Hurlothrumbo, or The Supernatural, which ran for 30 nights – not as long as John Gay
's The Beggar's Opera
(62 performances), but still a long run for the time.
The Theatre Royal Haymarket (also known as Haymarket Theatre or the Little Theatre) is a West End theatre
in the Haymarket
in the City of Westminster
which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use. Samuel Foote
acquired the lease in 1747, and in 1766 he gained a royal patent
to play legitimate drama (meaning spoken drama, as opposed to opera, concerts or plays with music) in the summer months. The original building was a little further north in the same street. It has been at its current location since 1821, when it was redesigned by John Nash
. It is a Grade I listed building, with a seating capacity
of 888. The freehold of the theatre is owned by the Crown Estate
.H M Land Registry registration NGL853225
The Haymarket has been the site of a significant innovation in theatre. In 1873, it was the venue for the first scheduled matinée performance, establishing a custom soon followed in theatres everywhere.
Its managers have included Benjamin Nottingham Webster
, John Baldwin Buckstone
, Squire Bancroft
, Cyril Maude
, Herbert Beerbohm Tree
, and John Sleeper Clarke
, brother-in-law of John Wilkes Booth
, who quit America after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
. Famous actors who débuted at the theatre included Robert William Elliston
(1774–1831) and John Liston
(1776–1846).
. The theatre cost £1000 to build, with a further £500 expended on decorations, scenery and costumes. It opened on December 29, 1720, with a French play La Fille a la Morte, ou le Badeaut de Paris performed by a company later known as 'The French Comedians of His Grace the Duke of Montague'. Potter's speculation was known as The New French Theatre.
The theatre's first major success was a 1729 production of a play by Samuel Johnson
of Cheshire
, Hurlothrumbo, or The Supernatural, which ran for 30 nights – not as long as John Gay
's The Beggar's Opera
(62 performances), but still a long run for the time.
The Theatre Royal Haymarket (also known as Haymarket Theatre or the Little Theatre) is a West End theatre
in the Haymarket
in the City of Westminster
which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use. Samuel Foote
acquired the lease in 1747, and in 1766 he gained a royal patent
to play legitimate drama (meaning spoken drama, as opposed to opera, concerts or plays with music) in the summer months. The original building was a little further north in the same street. It has been at its current location since 1821, when it was redesigned by John Nash
. It is a Grade I listed building, with a seating capacity
of 888. The freehold of the theatre is owned by the Crown Estate
.H M Land Registry registration NGL853225
The Haymarket has been the site of a significant innovation in theatre. In 1873, it was the venue for the first scheduled matinée performance, establishing a custom soon followed in theatres everywhere.
Its managers have included Benjamin Nottingham Webster
, John Baldwin Buckstone
, Squire Bancroft
, Cyril Maude
, Herbert Beerbohm Tree
, and John Sleeper Clarke
, brother-in-law of John Wilkes Booth
, who quit America after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
. Famous actors who débuted at the theatre included Robert William Elliston
(1774–1831) and John Liston
(1776–1846).
. The theatre cost £1000 to build, with a further £500 expended on decorations, scenery and costumes. It opened on December 29, 1720, with a French play La Fille a la Morte, ou le Badeaut de Paris performed by a company later known as 'The French Comedians of His Grace the Duke of Montague'. Potter's speculation was known as The New French Theatre.
The theatre's first major success was a 1729 production of a play by Samuel Johnson
of Cheshire
, Hurlothrumbo, or The Supernatural, which ran for 30 nights – not as long as John Gay
's The Beggar's Opera
(62 performances), but still a long run for the time.See the introduction here for some discussion of the play. In 1730, the theatre was taken over by an English company, and its name changed to the 'Little Theatre in the Haymarket'. Among the actors who appeared there before 1737 when the theatre was closed under the Licensing Act 1737
were Aaron Hill, Theophilus Cibber
, and Henry Fielding
. In the eight to ten years before the Act was passed, the Haymarket was an alternative to John Rich's
Theatre Royal, Covent Garden
and the opera-dominated Drury Lane Theatre
. Fielding himself was responsible for the instigation of the Act, having produced a play called The Historical Register that parodied prime minister Robert Walpole
, as the caricature, Quidam.
In particular, it was an alternative to the pantomime
and special-effects dominated stages, and it presented opposition (Tory party) satire. Henry Fielding
staged his plays at the Haymarket, and so did Henry Carey
. Hurlothrumbo was just one of his plays in that series of anti-Walpolean
satire
s, followed by Tom Thumb. Another, in 1734, was his mock-opera
, The Dragon of Wantley, with music by John Frederick Lampe
. This work punctured the vacuous operatic conventions and pointed a satirical barb at Walpole and his taxation policies. The piece was a huge success, with a record-setting run of 69 performances in its first season. The work debuted at the Haymarket Theatre, where its coded attack on Walpole would have been clear, but its long run occurred after it moved to Covent Garden, which had a much greater capacity for staging. The burlesque itself is very brief on the page, as it relied extensively on absurd theatrics, dances, and other non-textual entertainments. The Musical Entertainer from 1739 contains engravings showing how the staging was performed.Gillespie, Norman. "Henry Carey", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. vol. 15, p. 128.
Carey continued with Pasquin and others. Additionally, refugees from Drury Lane's and Covent Garden's internal struggles would show up at the Haymarket, and thus Charlotte Charke
would act there in a parody of her father, Colley Cibber
, one of the owners and managers of Drury Lane. The Theatrical Licensing Act, however, put an end to the anti-ministry satires, and it all but entirely shut down the theatre. From 1741 to 1747, Charles Macklin
, Cibber, Samuel Foote
, and others sometimes produced plays there either by use of a temporary licence or by subterfuge; one advertisement runs, "At Cibber's Academy in the Haymarket, will be a Concert, after which, will be exhibited (gratis) a Rehearsal, in the form of a Play, called Romeo and Juliet
."
In 1749 a hoax
er billed as The Bottle Conjuror
was advertised to appear at the theatre. The conjuror's publicity claimed that, while on stage, he would place his body inside an empty wine bottle, in full view of the audience. When the advertised act failed to appear on stage, the audience rioted and gutted the theatre. Although the identity of the hoax's perpetrator is unknown, several authors consider John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu
, to have been responsible.Ryan, Richard Ryan and François Joseph Talma. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Gw4NAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA69&lpg=PA69&dq=The+Bottle+Conjuror&source=bl&ots=QL_5LxSFTC&sig=Lc-gsx07CkHFZvvuFHSAePyPPHU&hl=en&ei=ifa4S4uUPIj7_Ab4363BDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBAQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=The%20Bottle%20Conjuror&f=falseDramatic Table Talk or, Scenes, Situations, & Adventures, Serious & Comic in Theatrical History and Biography, Vol III]. John Knight & Henry Lacey (1830), p. 69, Google Books
In 1754, John Potter, who had been rated (i.e. paid property tax
) for the theatre since its opening, was succeeded by John Whitehead. In 1758 Theophilus Cibber
obtained from William Howard
, then the Lord Chamberlain, a general licence under which Foote tried to establish the Haymarket as a regular theatre. With the aid of the Duke of York he procured a royal licence
to exhibit plays during four months in each year from May to September during his lifetime. He also bought the lease of the theatre from Potter's executors and, having added to the site by purchasing adjoining property, he enlarged and improved the building which he opened on May 14, 1767, as the Theatre Royal, the third patent theatre
in London. Several successful seasons followed, with Foote producing numerous plays at the theatre, but Foote finally got himself into difficulties by his custom of caricaturing well-known persons on the stage and this, combined with increasing ill-health, resulted in his selling both the theatre and patent to George Colman, Sr.
on 16 January 1777.
During the season of 1793–94 when Drury Lane Theatre was being rebuilt, the Haymarket was opened under the Drury Lane Patent. The season was notable for a 'Dreadful Accident' which occurred on 3 February 1794, 'when Twenty Persons unfortunately lost their lives, and a great Number were dreadfully bruised owing to a great Crowd pressing to see his Majesty, who was that Evening present at the Performance.' Amongst the dead was John Charles Brooke
, Somerset Herald
. Colman died in 1794, and the theatre descended to his son. George Colman Jr.
, though successful both as playwright and manager, dissipated his gains by his extravagance. For a time he lived in a room at the back of the theatre and he was finally forced to sell shares in the latter to his brother-in-law, David Morris. Monetary difficulties increased and for a while Colman managed the theatre from the King's Bench Prison, where he was confined for debt.
All the buildings on the east of the Haymarket from the theatre southward were rebuilt circa 1820 in connection with John Nash
's schemes for the improvement of the neighbourhood. Nash persuaded the proprietors of the theatre to rebuild on a site a little south of the old one so that the portico should close the vista from Charles Street. The main front feature of Nash's elevation in the Haymarket was (and is) a pedimented portico of six Corinthian columns which extends in depth to the edge of the pavement and includes the whole frontage. It is sometimes stated that Nash rebuilt the theatre entirely, but there is evidence that he incorporated a house in Little Suffolk Street with the theatre, removed two shops which were in front, in the Haymarket, built a portico, increased the number of avenues and added a second gallery to the existing auditorium.
A lease dated 10 June 1821, was granted to David Edward Morris. The theatre was opened on 4 July 1821, with The Rivals
. Benjamin Nottingham Webster
became the theatre's manager from 1837 to 1853. He and his successor, John Baldwin Buckstone
, established the theatre as a great comedy house, and the theatre hosted most of the great actors of the period.
In 1862, the theatre was host to a 400-night run of Our American Cousin
, with Edward Sothern as Lord Dundreary
. The play's success brought the word "dreary" into common use. Robertson's David Garrick
was a hit in 1864, also with Sothern in the title role. Sothern also starred in H. J. Byron's An English Gentleman at the theatre in 1871.The Times, 2 May 1871, p. 12 W. S. Gilbert
premiered seven of his plays at the Haymarket. The first was his early burlesque, Robinson Crusoe; or, The Injun Bride and the Injured Wife (1867, written with Byron, Tom Hood
, H. S. Leigh and Arthur Sketchley). Gilbert followed this with a number of his blank verse "fairy comedies", the first of which was The Palace of Truth
(1870), produced by Buckstone. These starred William Hunter Kendal
and his wife Madge Robertson Kendal and also included Pygmalion and Galatea (1871), and The Wicked World
(1873). Gilbert also produced here his dramas, Charity
(1874), Dan'l Druce, Blacksmith
(1876), and his most famous play outside of his Savoy Opera
s, Engaged
, an 1877 farce. Buckstone's ghost has reportedly often been seen at the theatre, particularly during comedies and "when he appreciates things" playing there. In 2009, The Daily Telegraph
reported that the actor Patrick Stewart
saw the ghost standing in the wings during a performance of Waiting for Godot
at the Haymarket.
In 1873, scheduled matinées were introduced, for the first time in London, starting at 2.00pm. In May 1875, Sullivan's
The Zoo
transferred to the Haymarket.Goodman In 1879 the house was taken over by the Bancrofts
, who re-opened the theatre with a revival of Edward Bulwer-Lytton's
Money, followed by Victorien Sardou
's Odette (for which they engaged Madame Helena Modjeska
) and Fedora, and Arthur Wing Pinero
's Lords and Commons, with other revivals of previous successes. The auditorium was reconstructed, and the stage enclosed in a complete picture frame proscenium
, the first in London. The abolition of the pit by the introduction of stalls seating divided by plain iron arms caused a small riot.
Herbert Beerbohm Tree
transferred from the Comedy Theatre with The Red Lamp in 1887. He took over upon the retirement of the Bancrofts and installed electric light in the theatre. Under Tree's management, Oscar Wilde
premiered his first comedy A Woman of No Importance
in April 1893. In January 1895 Wilde's An Ideal Husband
was first performed. Tree's next notable hit was George du Maurier
's Trilby, later in 1895. This ran for over 260 performances and made such profits that Tree was able to build Her Majesty's Theatre
and establish RADA
.
In 1896 Cyril Maude and Frederick Harrison became lessees, opening with Under the Red Robe, an adaptation of Stanley Wyman's novel. In 1897 The Little Minister by J. M. Barrie
ran for 320 performances.
by Charing Cross Station, leaving Harrison in sole control. In 1909, Herbert Trench produced Maurice Maeterlinck
's The Blue Bird
. Productions from then to the end of World War I
included Bunty Pulls the Strings (1911), a Scottish comedy by Graham Moffat
, which ran for 617 performances with Jimmy Finlayson
in the lead; Ibsen's Ghosts (1914); Elegant Edward, with Henry Daniell
as P. C. Hodson (1915); The Widow's Might (1916), a comedy by Leonard Huskinson and Christopher Sandeman, with Henry Daniell
.Parker, John. 1748 Notable Productions and General Post, a comedy by J. E. Harold Terry, which opened on 14 March 1917 and ran for 532 performances, again with Daniell.
In 1920, J. M. Barrie
's Mary Rose had a run of 399 performances. Another long-running production was Yellow Sands
, in which Ralph Richardson
gave 610 performances in 1926–27. In 1926 Harrison died, and Horace Watson became General Manager under a Trust. His presentations included 632 performances of The First Mrs Fraser, by St. John Ervine, starring Marie Tempest
in 1929. In 1939, under Watson's management, work began on excavating a stalls bar, but it was not completed until 1941 owing to the breakout of World War II
. Wartime presentations included the London premiere of Noël Coward
's Design for Living
(1939) and John Gielgud
's repertory season of The Circle (Somerset Maugham), Love for Love (Congreve
), Hamlet
, A Midsummer Night's Dream
and The Duchess of Malfi
.
In 1940, Gielgud directed The Beggar's Opera
, with Michael Redgrave
as Macheath.Gielgud Letters, p. 58 In 1945, two Coward plays, Present Laughter
and This Happy Breed
, alternated. They were followed by Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan
and The Importance of Being Earnest
in 1948, and Tennessee Williams
's The Glass Menagerie
directed by Gielgud, starring Helen Hayes
;Gielgud Letters, p. 119 and The Heiress
, an adaptation of Henry James
's Washington Square
, directed by Gielgud and starring Ralph Richardson and Peggy Ashcroft
, who was succeeded by Wendy Hiller
(1949–50).Sinden, p 150
, Edith Evans
and Wendy Hiller. For the Coronation season in 1953, Coward gave a rare performance in a play not written by him, The Apple Cart
by George Bernard Shaw
, with Margaret Leighton as his co-star. To Coward, the Haymarket was "the most perfect theatre in the world".Lesley, p. 316 In 1956, Stuart Watson died and was succeeded by his son, Anthony. Productions under the new management included Flowering Cherry by Robert Bolt (1957) starring Ralph Richardson
and Celia Johnson
; Ross
by Terence Rattigan
(1960) and John Gielgud's production of The School for Scandal
, with Ralph Richardson and Margaret Rutherford
. In the 1960s, notable presentations included The Tulip Bee by N. C. Hunter starring Celia Johnson and John Clements
and Thornton Wilder
's Ides of March directed by Gielgud (both 1963).
In 1971, Louis I. Michaels became the lessee of the theatre. Productions of the decade included a revival of Enid Bagnold
's The Chalk Garden
, with Gladys Cooper
(1971); the long-running A Voyage Round My Father
(John Mortimer
) starring Alec Guinness
, succeeded by Michael Redgrave (1971–72); and, in 1972, Crown Matrimonial by Royce Ryton, starring Wendy Hiller as Queen Mary
. Later productions were Edith Evans and Friends (1974); a revival of On Approval (Frederick Lonsdale
) with Geraldine McEwan
and Edward Woodward
(1975); The Circle, with Googie Withers
and John McCallum
(1976); Rosmersholm
(Ibsen) with Claire Bloom
and Daniel Massey
(1977); The Millionairess (Shaw), with Penelope Keith
; Waters of the Moon again, starring Wendy Hiller and Ingrid Bergman
in her last stage role (both 1978); and Keith Michell
and Susan Hampshire
in The Crucifer of Blood
(1979).
), with Leonard Rossiter
(1980). The following year, Louis Michaels died, and the theatre passed to a company, Louis I Michaels Ltd, with President, Enid Chanelle and Chairman, Arnold M Crook. They presented Overheard, by and starring Peter Ustinov
; and Virginia, with Maggie Smith
(1981). In 1982, the Haymarket staged a repertory season of Hobson's Choice, starring Penelope Keith; A Coat of Varnish (Ronald Millar); Captain Brassbound's Conversion
(Shaw); Uncle Vanya
(Chekhov
); Rules of the Game (Luigi Pirandello
); and Man and Superman
(Shaw), starring Peter O'Toole
. In 1983, productions included The School for Scandal, starring Donald Sinden
; Heartbreak House
(Shaw), starring Rex Harrison
; Ben Kingsley
in a one-man show about Edmund Kean
; A Patriot for Me
(John Osborne
); The Cherry Orchard
(Chekhov); and The Sleeping Prince (Terence Rattigan
).
Productions in 1984 were The Aspern Papers
by Henry James, starring Christopher Reeve
, Vanessa Redgrave
and Wendy Hiller; Aren't We All?
(Frederick Lonsdale) starring Claudette Colbert
; and The Way of the World
(Congreve
). In 1985, Lauren Bacall
starred in Sweet Bird of Youth
(Tennessee Williams), followed by Harold Pinter
's Old Times
. In 1986 the theatre presented Antony and Cleopatra
, starring Vanessa Redgrave
; Breaking the Code (Hugh Whitmore), starring Derek Jacobi
as Alan Turing
; Long Day's Journey Into Night
, starring Jack Lemmon
; and The Apple Cart, starring Peter O'Toole. 1987 productions included Mad Bad and Dangerous to Know (Jane McCulloch) and Melon (Simon Gray). In 1988, another Tennessee Williams play, Orpheus Descending, starred Vanessa Redgrave; later productions that year were You Never Can Tell (Shaw); The Deep Blue Sea (Rattigan); and The Admirable Crichton
(J. M. Barrie
). The 1980s ended at the Haymarket with The Royal Baccarat Scandal (Royce Ryton); Veterans' Day (Donald Freed
); and A Life In The Theatre (David Mamet
).
In 1990, the Haymarket revived London Assurance (Dion Boucicault
). This was followed by An Evening with Peter Ustinov and Gasping (Ben Elton
). The next year, the theatre presented Silly Cow (Ben Elton); John Sessions
' Travelling Tales; and Jean Anouilh
's Becket, starring Derek Jacobi and Robert Lindsay
. Lindsay also starred in a revival of Cyrano de Bergerac
in 1992. This was succeeeded by new productions of Heartbreak House and A Woman of No Importance.
In 1994 the theatre closed for a £1.3 million refurbishment, re-opening later that year with An Evening with Peter Ustinov, followed by Arcadia (Tom Stoppard
). Burning Blue (1995), a new play by the first time playwright David Greer, was followed by the veteran director Peter Hall's revival of Ibsen's The Master Builder
, starring Alan Bates
. Hall also directed the 1996 An Ideal Husband
(Oscar Wilde) 100 years after its première at the Haymarket; the new production featured Martin Shaw
as Lord Goring. Another production of 1996 was Neil Simon
's The Odd Couple
, starring Tony Randall
and Jack Klugman
. Hall was in charge again for the 1997 production of A Streetcar Named Desire
(Tennessee Williams), starring Jessica Lange
; Lady Windermere's Fan; and An Ideal Husband (returning after touring). The last production of that year was A Delicate Balance (Edward Albee), starring Maggie Smith
, John Standing
, Annette Crosbie
and Eileen Atkins
.
In 1998, Shakespeare's Villains
a one-man play, created and performed by Steven Berkoff
at the theatre was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Entertainment. Later that year, Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love
, starring John Wood
, transferred from the National Theatre
. In 1999, Fascinating Aida
's comic revue was followed by Neil Simon's The Prisoner of Second Avenue
, with Richard Dreyfuss
and Marsha Mason
; Love Letters
, by A. R. Gurney
, with Charlton Heston
; and a transfer of the Chichester Festival
's The Importance of Being Earnest, starring Patricia Routledge
.
, and August Strindberg
's Miss Julie
, followed in 2001 by The Blue Room by David Hare
; Japes by Simon Gray
, directed by Peter Hall; and The Royal Family (Edna Ferber
), starring Judi Dench
. In 2002 the theatre presented Lady Windermere's Fan, directed by Peter Hall starring Vanessa Redgrave
and Joely Richardson
; Rose Rage, an adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry VI plays, directed by Edward Hall
; and Judi Dench and Maggie Smith appeared on stage together for the first time in over 40 years in The Breath of Life
by David Hare
. Productions in 2003 were The Rat Pack: Live From Las Vegas
, Brand
(Ibsen) directed by Adrian Noble
, starring Ralph Fiennes
, and A Woman of No Importance, with Rupert Graves
, Samantha Bond and Prunella Scales
, also directed by Noble.
In 2004, the theatre presented a stage production of the film, When Harry Met Sally, starring Luke Perry
and Alyson Hannigan
, during which the house closed for two nights after bits of the ceiling fell down during a performance injuring about 13 people. It was followed by Singular Sensations, a season of performances by Barbara Cook
, Michael Feinstein
, Michael Ball
and Joshua Rifkin
. The last production of 2004 was a revival of Becket
by Anouilh. 2005 productions were Victoria Wood
's Acorn Antiques The Musical, starring Julie Walters
, Celia Imrie
and Duncan Preston
, directed by Trevor Nunn
; The Genius of Ray Charles
; and A Few Good Men, starring Rob Lowe
, Suranne Jones
and Jack Ellis. 2006 featured three revivals: A Man for All Seasons
, starring Martin Shaw; Coward's Hay Fever
, with Judi Dench and Peter Bowles
; and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
, starring Dave Willetts
and Shona Lindsay. The last production of that year was Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks, starring Claire Bloom and Billy Zane
.
The first production of 2007 was Pinter's People
, a compilation of Harold Pinter
sketches of the past 40 years, staged by a company of four, led by Bill Bailey
; later productions of that year were The Lady from Dubuque
(Albee), starring Maggie Smith; David Suchet
in The Last Confession
; and The Country Wife
, starring Toby Stephens
, Patricia Hodge
and David Haig
. The following year's productions were The Sea
(Bond), starring David Haig
, Eileen Atkins
and Russell Tovey
; Marguerite
, a new musical starring Ruthie Henshall
and Alexander Hanson
; Girl with a Pearl Earring, a stage adaptation by David Joss Buckley of Tracy Chevalier
's novel; and Keith Allen in Treasure Island
.
In 2009 the theatre presented On the Waterfront
; Ian McKellen
, Patrick Stewart
, Simon Callow
and Ronald Pickup
starred in Waiting for Godot
; followed by Breakfast at Tiffany's, starring Anna Friel
, Joseph Cross, James Dreyfus
and Suzanne Bertish
. In 2010 Waiting for Godot
was staged again with McKellen, Roger Rees
, Matthew Kelly
and Pickup; followed by a transfer of Sweet Charity
from the Menier Chocolate Factory
. The next show was The Rivals
starring Penelope Keith
and Peter Bowles
.
Trevor Nunn
took over as Artistic Director in 2011. His productions include a revival of Flare Path
as part of the playwright Terence Rattigan
's centenary year celebrations, from March to June, starring Sienna Miller
, James Purefoy
and Sheridan Smith
. From June to August, the theatre will present the Chichester Festival Theatre
's revival of Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
. From August to October, Ralph Fiennes
will play Prospero in a production of The Tempest
by William Shakespeare
. In November, Robert Lindsay
and Joanna Lumley
will star in The Lion in Winter
, which will run until January 2012.
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
in the Haymarket
The Haymarket
Haymarket is a street in the St. James's district of the City of Westminster, London. It runs from Piccadilly Circus at the north to Pall Mall at the south...
in the City of Westminster
City of Westminster
The City of Westminster is a London borough occupying much of the central area of London, England, including most of the West End. It is located to the west of and adjoining the ancient City of London, directly to the east of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and its southern boundary...
which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use. Samuel Foote
Samuel Foote
Samuel Foote was a British dramatist, actor and theatre manager from Cornwall.-Early life:Born into a well-to-do family, Foote was baptized in Truro, Cornwall on 27 January 1720. His father, John Foote, held several public positions, including mayor of Truro, Member of Parliament representing...
acquired the lease in 1747, and in 1766 he gained a royal patent
Patent theatre
The patent theatres were the theatres that were licensed to perform "spoken drama" after the English Restoration of Charles II in 1660. Other theatres were prohibited from performing such "serious" drama, but were permitted to show comedy, pantomime or melodrama...
to play legitimate drama (meaning spoken drama, as opposed to opera, concerts or plays with music) in the summer months. The original building was a little further north in the same street. It has been at its current location since 1821, when it was redesigned by John Nash
John Nash (architect)
John Nash was a British architect responsible for much of the layout of Regency London.-Biography:Born in Lambeth, London, the son of a Welsh millwright, Nash trained with the architect Sir Robert Taylor. He established his own practice in 1777, but his career was initially unsuccessful and...
. It is a Grade I listed building, with a seating capacity
Seating capacity
Seating capacity refers to the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, both in terms of the physical space available, and in terms of limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that seats two to a stadium that seats...
of 888. The freehold of the theatre is owned by the Crown Estate
Crown Estate
In the United Kingdom, the Crown Estate is a property portfolio owned by the Crown. Although still belonging to the monarch and inherent with the accession of the throne, it is no longer the private property of the reigning monarch and cannot be sold by him/her, nor do the revenues from it belong...
.
The Haymarket has been the site of a significant innovation in theatre. In 1873, it was the venue for the first scheduled matinée performance, establishing a custom soon followed in theatres everywhere.
Its managers have included Benjamin Nottingham Webster
Benjamin Nottingham Webster
Benjamin Nottingham Webster was an English actor-manager and dramatist.-Career:First appearing as Harlequin, and then in small parts at Drury Lane, he went to the Haymarket Theatre in 1829, and was given leading comedy character business.Webster was the lessee of the Haymarket from 1837 to 1853;...
, John Baldwin Buckstone
John Baldwin Buckstone
John Baldwin Buckstone was an English actor, playwright and comedian who wrote 150 plays, the first of which was produced in 1826....
, Squire Bancroft
Squire Bancroft
Sir Squire Bancroft , born Squire White Butterfield, was an English actor-manager. He and his wife Effie Bancroft are considered to have instigated a new form of drama known as 'drawing-room comedy' or 'cup and saucer drama', owing to the realism of their stage sets.-Early life and career:Bancroft...
, Cyril Maude
Cyril Maude
Cyril Francis Maude was an English actor-manager.-Biography:Maude was born in London and educated at the Charterhouse School. In 1881, he was sent to Adelaide, South Australia, on the clipper ship City of Adelaide to regain his health...
, Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree was an English actor and theatre manager.Tree began performing in the 1870s. By 1887, he was managing the Haymarket Theatre, winning praise for adventurous programming and lavish productions, and starring in many of its productions. In 1899, he helped fund the...
, and John Sleeper Clarke
John Sleeper Clarke
John Sleeper Clarke , 19th century American comedian and actor, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and was educated for the law. In his boyhood he was a schoolmate of Edwin Booth who was born in the same year as he, and with whom he engaged in amateur dramatic readings as members of the Baltimore...
, brother-in-law of John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth was an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. Booth was a member of the prominent 19th century Booth theatrical family from Maryland and, by the 1860s, was a well-known actor...
, who quit America after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
. Famous actors who débuted at the theatre included Robert William Elliston
Robert William Elliston
Robert William Elliston was an English actor and theatre manager.He was born in London, the son of a watchmaker. He was educated at St Paul's School, but ran away from home and made his first appearance on the stage as Tressel in Richard III at Bath in 1791...
(1774–1831) and John Liston
John Liston
John Liston , English comedian, was born in London.He made his public debut on the stage at Weymouth as Lord Duberley in The Heir-at-law...
(1776–1846).
Origins and early years
The First Haymarket Theatre or Little Theatre was built in 1720 by John Potter, carpenter, on the site of The King's Head Inn in the Haymarket and a shop in Suffolk Street kept by Isaac Bliburgh, a gunsmith, and known by the sign of the Cannon and Musket. It was the third public theatre opened in the West EndWest End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
. The theatre cost £1000 to build, with a further £500 expended on decorations, scenery and costumes. It opened on December 29, 1720, with a French play La Fille a la Morte, ou le Badeaut de Paris performed by a company later known as 'The French Comedians of His Grace the Duke of Montague'. Potter's speculation was known as The New French Theatre.
The theatre's first major success was a 1729 production of a play by Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (dramatist)
Samuel Johnson was an English dancing-master and dramatist, known for his work Hurlothrumbo.-Life:Johnson was a native of Cheshire. In 1722 he gave a ball at Manchester, noted by John Byrom, and in 1724 he was in London with his fiddle...
of Cheshire
Cheshire
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...
, Hurlothrumbo, or The Supernatural, which ran for 30 nights – not as long as John Gay
John Gay
John Gay was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera , set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch...
's The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today...
(62 performances), but still a long run for the time.
The Theatre Royal Haymarket (also known as Haymarket Theatre or the Little Theatre) is a West End theatre
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
in the Haymarket
The Haymarket
Haymarket is a street in the St. James's district of the City of Westminster, London. It runs from Piccadilly Circus at the north to Pall Mall at the south...
in the City of Westminster
City of Westminster
The City of Westminster is a London borough occupying much of the central area of London, England, including most of the West End. It is located to the west of and adjoining the ancient City of London, directly to the east of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and its southern boundary...
which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use. Samuel Foote
Samuel Foote
Samuel Foote was a British dramatist, actor and theatre manager from Cornwall.-Early life:Born into a well-to-do family, Foote was baptized in Truro, Cornwall on 27 January 1720. His father, John Foote, held several public positions, including mayor of Truro, Member of Parliament representing...
acquired the lease in 1747, and in 1766 he gained a royal patent
Patent theatre
The patent theatres were the theatres that were licensed to perform "spoken drama" after the English Restoration of Charles II in 1660. Other theatres were prohibited from performing such "serious" drama, but were permitted to show comedy, pantomime or melodrama...
to play legitimate drama (meaning spoken drama, as opposed to opera, concerts or plays with music) in the summer months. The original building was a little further north in the same street. It has been at its current location since 1821, when it was redesigned by John Nash
John Nash (architect)
John Nash was a British architect responsible for much of the layout of Regency London.-Biography:Born in Lambeth, London, the son of a Welsh millwright, Nash trained with the architect Sir Robert Taylor. He established his own practice in 1777, but his career was initially unsuccessful and...
. It is a Grade I listed building, with a seating capacity
Seating capacity
Seating capacity refers to the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, both in terms of the physical space available, and in terms of limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that seats two to a stadium that seats...
of 888. The freehold of the theatre is owned by the Crown Estate
Crown Estate
In the United Kingdom, the Crown Estate is a property portfolio owned by the Crown. Although still belonging to the monarch and inherent with the accession of the throne, it is no longer the private property of the reigning monarch and cannot be sold by him/her, nor do the revenues from it belong...
.H M Land Registry registration NGL853225
The Haymarket has been the site of a significant innovation in theatre. In 1873, it was the venue for the first scheduled matinée performance, establishing a custom soon followed in theatres everywhere.
Its managers have included Benjamin Nottingham Webster
Benjamin Nottingham Webster
Benjamin Nottingham Webster was an English actor-manager and dramatist.-Career:First appearing as Harlequin, and then in small parts at Drury Lane, he went to the Haymarket Theatre in 1829, and was given leading comedy character business.Webster was the lessee of the Haymarket from 1837 to 1853;...
, John Baldwin Buckstone
John Baldwin Buckstone
John Baldwin Buckstone was an English actor, playwright and comedian who wrote 150 plays, the first of which was produced in 1826....
, Squire Bancroft
Squire Bancroft
Sir Squire Bancroft , born Squire White Butterfield, was an English actor-manager. He and his wife Effie Bancroft are considered to have instigated a new form of drama known as 'drawing-room comedy' or 'cup and saucer drama', owing to the realism of their stage sets.-Early life and career:Bancroft...
, Cyril Maude
Cyril Maude
Cyril Francis Maude was an English actor-manager.-Biography:Maude was born in London and educated at the Charterhouse School. In 1881, he was sent to Adelaide, South Australia, on the clipper ship City of Adelaide to regain his health...
, Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree was an English actor and theatre manager.Tree began performing in the 1870s. By 1887, he was managing the Haymarket Theatre, winning praise for adventurous programming and lavish productions, and starring in many of its productions. In 1899, he helped fund the...
, and John Sleeper Clarke
John Sleeper Clarke
John Sleeper Clarke , 19th century American comedian and actor, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and was educated for the law. In his boyhood he was a schoolmate of Edwin Booth who was born in the same year as he, and with whom he engaged in amateur dramatic readings as members of the Baltimore...
, brother-in-law of John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth was an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. Booth was a member of the prominent 19th century Booth theatrical family from Maryland and, by the 1860s, was a well-known actor...
, who quit America after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
. Famous actors who débuted at the theatre included Robert William Elliston
Robert William Elliston
Robert William Elliston was an English actor and theatre manager.He was born in London, the son of a watchmaker. He was educated at St Paul's School, but ran away from home and made his first appearance on the stage as Tressel in Richard III at Bath in 1791...
(1774–1831) and John Liston
John Liston
John Liston , English comedian, was born in London.He made his public debut on the stage at Weymouth as Lord Duberley in The Heir-at-law...
(1776–1846).
Origins and early years
The First Haymarket Theatre or Little Theatre was built in 1720 by John Potter, carpenter, on the site of The King's Head Inn in the Haymarket and a shop in Suffolk Street kept by Isaac Bliburgh, a gunsmith, and known by the sign of the Cannon and Musket. It was the third public theatre opened in the West EndWest End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
. The theatre cost £1000 to build, with a further £500 expended on decorations, scenery and costumes. It opened on December 29, 1720, with a French play La Fille a la Morte, ou le Badeaut de Paris performed by a company later known as 'The French Comedians of His Grace the Duke of Montague'. Potter's speculation was known as The New French Theatre.
The theatre's first major success was a 1729 production of a play by Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (dramatist)
Samuel Johnson was an English dancing-master and dramatist, known for his work Hurlothrumbo.-Life:Johnson was a native of Cheshire. In 1722 he gave a ball at Manchester, noted by John Byrom, and in 1724 he was in London with his fiddle...
of Cheshire
Cheshire
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...
, Hurlothrumbo, or The Supernatural, which ran for 30 nights – not as long as John Gay
John Gay
John Gay was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera , set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch...
's The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today...
(62 performances), but still a long run for the time.
The Theatre Royal Haymarket (also known as Haymarket Theatre or the Little Theatre) is a West End theatre
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
in the Haymarket
The Haymarket
Haymarket is a street in the St. James's district of the City of Westminster, London. It runs from Piccadilly Circus at the north to Pall Mall at the south...
in the City of Westminster
City of Westminster
The City of Westminster is a London borough occupying much of the central area of London, England, including most of the West End. It is located to the west of and adjoining the ancient City of London, directly to the east of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and its southern boundary...
which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use. Samuel Foote
Samuel Foote
Samuel Foote was a British dramatist, actor and theatre manager from Cornwall.-Early life:Born into a well-to-do family, Foote was baptized in Truro, Cornwall on 27 January 1720. His father, John Foote, held several public positions, including mayor of Truro, Member of Parliament representing...
acquired the lease in 1747, and in 1766 he gained a royal patent
Patent theatre
The patent theatres were the theatres that were licensed to perform "spoken drama" after the English Restoration of Charles II in 1660. Other theatres were prohibited from performing such "serious" drama, but were permitted to show comedy, pantomime or melodrama...
to play legitimate drama (meaning spoken drama, as opposed to opera, concerts or plays with music) in the summer months. The original building was a little further north in the same street. It has been at its current location since 1821, when it was redesigned by John Nash
John Nash (architect)
John Nash was a British architect responsible for much of the layout of Regency London.-Biography:Born in Lambeth, London, the son of a Welsh millwright, Nash trained with the architect Sir Robert Taylor. He established his own practice in 1777, but his career was initially unsuccessful and...
. It is a Grade I listed building, with a seating capacity
Seating capacity
Seating capacity refers to the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, both in terms of the physical space available, and in terms of limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that seats two to a stadium that seats...
of 888. The freehold of the theatre is owned by the Crown Estate
Crown Estate
In the United Kingdom, the Crown Estate is a property portfolio owned by the Crown. Although still belonging to the monarch and inherent with the accession of the throne, it is no longer the private property of the reigning monarch and cannot be sold by him/her, nor do the revenues from it belong...
.H M Land Registry registration NGL853225
The Haymarket has been the site of a significant innovation in theatre. In 1873, it was the venue for the first scheduled matinée performance, establishing a custom soon followed in theatres everywhere.
Its managers have included Benjamin Nottingham Webster
Benjamin Nottingham Webster
Benjamin Nottingham Webster was an English actor-manager and dramatist.-Career:First appearing as Harlequin, and then in small parts at Drury Lane, he went to the Haymarket Theatre in 1829, and was given leading comedy character business.Webster was the lessee of the Haymarket from 1837 to 1853;...
, John Baldwin Buckstone
John Baldwin Buckstone
John Baldwin Buckstone was an English actor, playwright and comedian who wrote 150 plays, the first of which was produced in 1826....
, Squire Bancroft
Squire Bancroft
Sir Squire Bancroft , born Squire White Butterfield, was an English actor-manager. He and his wife Effie Bancroft are considered to have instigated a new form of drama known as 'drawing-room comedy' or 'cup and saucer drama', owing to the realism of their stage sets.-Early life and career:Bancroft...
, Cyril Maude
Cyril Maude
Cyril Francis Maude was an English actor-manager.-Biography:Maude was born in London and educated at the Charterhouse School. In 1881, he was sent to Adelaide, South Australia, on the clipper ship City of Adelaide to regain his health...
, Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree was an English actor and theatre manager.Tree began performing in the 1870s. By 1887, he was managing the Haymarket Theatre, winning praise for adventurous programming and lavish productions, and starring in many of its productions. In 1899, he helped fund the...
, and John Sleeper Clarke
John Sleeper Clarke
John Sleeper Clarke , 19th century American comedian and actor, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and was educated for the law. In his boyhood he was a schoolmate of Edwin Booth who was born in the same year as he, and with whom he engaged in amateur dramatic readings as members of the Baltimore...
, brother-in-law of John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth was an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. Booth was a member of the prominent 19th century Booth theatrical family from Maryland and, by the 1860s, was a well-known actor...
, who quit America after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
. Famous actors who débuted at the theatre included Robert William Elliston
Robert William Elliston
Robert William Elliston was an English actor and theatre manager.He was born in London, the son of a watchmaker. He was educated at St Paul's School, but ran away from home and made his first appearance on the stage as Tressel in Richard III at Bath in 1791...
(1774–1831) and John Liston
John Liston
John Liston , English comedian, was born in London.He made his public debut on the stage at Weymouth as Lord Duberley in The Heir-at-law...
(1776–1846).
Origins and early years
The First Haymarket Theatre or Little Theatre was built in 1720 by John Potter, carpenter, on the site of The King's Head Inn in the Haymarket and a shop in Suffolk Street kept by Isaac Bliburgh, a gunsmith, and known by the sign of the Cannon and Musket. It was the third public theatre opened in the West EndWest End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
. The theatre cost £1000 to build, with a further £500 expended on decorations, scenery and costumes. It opened on December 29, 1720, with a French play La Fille a la Morte, ou le Badeaut de Paris performed by a company later known as 'The French Comedians of His Grace the Duke of Montague'. Potter's speculation was known as The New French Theatre.
The theatre's first major success was a 1729 production of a play by Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (dramatist)
Samuel Johnson was an English dancing-master and dramatist, known for his work Hurlothrumbo.-Life:Johnson was a native of Cheshire. In 1722 he gave a ball at Manchester, noted by John Byrom, and in 1724 he was in London with his fiddle...
of Cheshire
Cheshire
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...
, Hurlothrumbo, or The Supernatural, which ran for 30 nights – not as long as John Gay
John Gay
John Gay was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera , set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch...
's The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today...
(62 performances), but still a long run for the time.See the introduction here for some discussion of the play. In 1730, the theatre was taken over by an English company, and its name changed to the 'Little Theatre in the Haymarket'. Among the actors who appeared there before 1737 when the theatre was closed under the Licensing Act 1737
Licensing Act 1737
The Licensing Act or Theatrical Licensing Act of 21 June 1737 was a landmark act of censorship of the British stage and one of the most determining factors in the development of Augustan drama...
were Aaron Hill, Theophilus Cibber
Theophilus Cibber
Theophilus Cibber was an English actor, playwright, author, and son of the actor-manager Colley Cibber.He began acting at an early age, and followed his father into theatrical management. In 1727, Alexander Pope satirized Theophilus Cibber in his Dunciad as a youth who "thrusts his person full...
, and Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones....
. In the eight to ten years before the Act was passed, the Haymarket was an alternative to John Rich's
John Rich (producer)
John Rich was an important director and theatre manager in 18th century London. He opened the New Theatre at Lincoln's Inn Fields and then the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden and began putting on ever more lavish productions...
Theatre Royal, Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
and the opera-dominated Drury Lane Theatre
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
. Fielding himself was responsible for the instigation of the Act, having produced a play called The Historical Register that parodied prime minister Robert Walpole
Robert Walpole
Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, KG, KB, PC , known before 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British statesman who is generally regarded as having been the first Prime Minister of Great Britain....
, as the caricature, Quidam.
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
and special-effects dominated stages, and it presented opposition (Tory party) satire. Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones....
staged his plays at the Haymarket, and so did Henry Carey
Henry Carey (writer)
Henry Carey was an English poet, dramatist and song-writer. He is remembered as an anti-Walpolean satirist and also as a patriot. Several of his melodies continue to be sung today, and he was widely praised in the generation after his death...
. Hurlothrumbo was just one of his plays in that series of anti-Walpolean
Robert Walpole
Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, KG, KB, PC , known before 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British statesman who is generally regarded as having been the first Prime Minister of Great Britain....
satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
s, followed by Tom Thumb. Another, in 1734, was his mock-opera
Burlesque
Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...
, The Dragon of Wantley, with music by John Frederick Lampe
John Frederick Lampe
John Frederick Lampe was a musician.He was born in Saxony, but came to England in 1724 and played the bassoon in opera houses. His wife, Isabella Lampe, was sister-in-law to the composer Thomas Arne with whom Lampe collaborated on a number of concert seasons...
. This work punctured the vacuous operatic conventions and pointed a satirical barb at Walpole and his taxation policies. The piece was a huge success, with a record-setting run of 69 performances in its first season. The work debuted at the Haymarket Theatre, where its coded attack on Walpole would have been clear, but its long run occurred after it moved to Covent Garden, which had a much greater capacity for staging. The burlesque itself is very brief on the page, as it relied extensively on absurd theatrics, dances, and other non-textual entertainments. The Musical Entertainer from 1739 contains engravings showing how the staging was performed.Gillespie, Norman. "Henry Carey", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. vol. 15, p. 128.
Carey continued with Pasquin and others. Additionally, refugees from Drury Lane's and Covent Garden's internal struggles would show up at the Haymarket, and thus Charlotte Charke
Charlotte Charke
Charlotte Charke was an English actress, playwright, novelist, autobiographer, and noted transvestite. She acted on the stage from the age of 17, mainly in breeches roles, and took to wearing male clothing off the stage...
would act there in a parody of her father, Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling style...
, one of the owners and managers of Drury Lane. The Theatrical Licensing Act, however, put an end to the anti-ministry satires, and it all but entirely shut down the theatre. From 1741 to 1747, Charles Macklin
Charles Macklin
Charles Macklin , originally Cathal MacLochlainn , was an actor and dramatist born in Culdaff, a village on the scenic Inishowen Peninsula in County Donegal, part of the Province of Ulster in the north of Ireland. He was one of the most distinguished actors of his day, equally in tragedy and comedy...
, Cibber, Samuel Foote
Samuel Foote
Samuel Foote was a British dramatist, actor and theatre manager from Cornwall.-Early life:Born into a well-to-do family, Foote was baptized in Truro, Cornwall on 27 January 1720. His father, John Foote, held several public positions, including mayor of Truro, Member of Parliament representing...
, and others sometimes produced plays there either by use of a temporary licence or by subterfuge; one advertisement runs, "At Cibber's Academy in the Haymarket, will be a Concert, after which, will be exhibited (gratis) a Rehearsal, in the form of a Play, called Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
."
In 1749 a hoax
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
er billed as The Bottle Conjuror
The Bottle Conjuror
The Bottle Conjuror was the stage name given to an anonymous theatrical performer, advertised to appear at the Haymarket Theatre in England, on 16 January 1749. While on stage, the acrobat was to have placed his body inside an empty wine bottle, in full view of the audience...
was advertised to appear at the theatre. The conjuror's publicity claimed that, while on stage, he would place his body inside an empty wine bottle, in full view of the audience. When the advertised act failed to appear on stage, the audience rioted and gutted the theatre. Although the identity of the hoax's perpetrator is unknown, several authors consider John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu
John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu
John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu, KG, KB, PC , styled Viscount Monthermer until 1705 and Marquess of Monthermer between 1705 and 1709, was a British peer...
, to have been responsible.Ryan, Richard Ryan and François Joseph Talma. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Gw4NAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA69&lpg=PA69&dq=The+Bottle+Conjuror&source=bl&ots=QL_5LxSFTC&sig=Lc-gsx07CkHFZvvuFHSAePyPPHU&hl=en&ei=ifa4S4uUPIj7_Ab4363BDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBAQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=The%20Bottle%20Conjuror&f=falseDramatic Table Talk or, Scenes, Situations, & Adventures, Serious & Comic in Theatrical History and Biography, Vol III]. John Knight & Henry Lacey (1830), p. 69, Google Books
London's third patent theatre
Rates (tax)
Rates are a type of property tax system in the United Kingdom, and in places with systems deriving from the British one, the proceeds of which are used to fund local government...
) for the theatre since its opening, was succeeded by John Whitehead. In 1758 Theophilus Cibber
Theophilus Cibber
Theophilus Cibber was an English actor, playwright, author, and son of the actor-manager Colley Cibber.He began acting at an early age, and followed his father into theatrical management. In 1727, Alexander Pope satirized Theophilus Cibber in his Dunciad as a youth who "thrusts his person full...
obtained from William Howard
William Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Effingham
William Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Effingham , was the eldest son of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk by his second wife, Agnes Tilney...
, then the Lord Chamberlain, a general licence under which Foote tried to establish the Haymarket as a regular theatre. With the aid of the Duke of York he procured a royal licence
Letters patent
Letters patent are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch or president, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, title, or status to a person or corporation...
to exhibit plays during four months in each year from May to September during his lifetime. He also bought the lease of the theatre from Potter's executors and, having added to the site by purchasing adjoining property, he enlarged and improved the building which he opened on May 14, 1767, as the Theatre Royal, the third patent theatre
Patent theatre
The patent theatres were the theatres that were licensed to perform "spoken drama" after the English Restoration of Charles II in 1660. Other theatres were prohibited from performing such "serious" drama, but were permitted to show comedy, pantomime or melodrama...
in London. Several successful seasons followed, with Foote producing numerous plays at the theatre, but Foote finally got himself into difficulties by his custom of caricaturing well-known persons on the stage and this, combined with increasing ill-health, resulted in his selling both the theatre and patent to George Colman, Sr.
George Colman the Elder
George Colman was an English dramatist and essayist, usually called "the Elder", and sometimes "George the First", to distinguish him from his son, George Colman the Younger....
on 16 January 1777.
During the season of 1793–94 when Drury Lane Theatre was being rebuilt, the Haymarket was opened under the Drury Lane Patent. The season was notable for a 'Dreadful Accident' which occurred on 3 February 1794, 'when Twenty Persons unfortunately lost their lives, and a great Number were dreadfully bruised owing to a great Crowd pressing to see his Majesty, who was that Evening present at the Performance.' Amongst the dead was John Charles Brooke
John Charles Brooke
John Charles Brooke FSA was an English antiquarian and Somerset Herald at the time of his premature death in 1794.-Early life:...
, Somerset Herald
Somerset Herald
Somerset Herald of Arms in Ordinary is an officer of arms at the College of Arms in London. In the year 1448 Somerset Herald is known to have served the Duke of Somerset, but by the time of the coronation of King Henry VII in 1485 his successor appears to have been raised to the rank of a royal...
. Colman died in 1794, and the theatre descended to his son. George Colman Jr.
George Colman the Younger
George Colman , known as "the Younger", English dramatist and miscellaneous writer, was the son of George Colman "the Elder".-Life:...
, though successful both as playwright and manager, dissipated his gains by his extravagance. For a time he lived in a room at the back of the theatre and he was finally forced to sell shares in the latter to his brother-in-law, David Morris. Monetary difficulties increased and for a while Colman managed the theatre from the King's Bench Prison, where he was confined for debt.
All the buildings on the east of the Haymarket from the theatre southward were rebuilt circa 1820 in connection with John Nash
John Nash (architect)
John Nash was a British architect responsible for much of the layout of Regency London.-Biography:Born in Lambeth, London, the son of a Welsh millwright, Nash trained with the architect Sir Robert Taylor. He established his own practice in 1777, but his career was initially unsuccessful and...
's schemes for the improvement of the neighbourhood. Nash persuaded the proprietors of the theatre to rebuild on a site a little south of the old one so that the portico should close the vista from Charles Street. The main front feature of Nash's elevation in the Haymarket was (and is) a pedimented portico of six Corinthian columns which extends in depth to the edge of the pavement and includes the whole frontage. It is sometimes stated that Nash rebuilt the theatre entirely, but there is evidence that he incorporated a house in Little Suffolk Street with the theatre, removed two shops which were in front, in the Haymarket, built a portico, increased the number of avenues and added a second gallery to the existing auditorium.
A lease dated 10 June 1821, was granted to David Edward Morris. The theatre was opened on 4 July 1821, with The Rivals
The Rivals
The Rivals, a play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, is a comedy of manners in five acts. It was first performed on 17 January 1775.- Production :...
. Benjamin Nottingham Webster
Benjamin Nottingham Webster
Benjamin Nottingham Webster was an English actor-manager and dramatist.-Career:First appearing as Harlequin, and then in small parts at Drury Lane, he went to the Haymarket Theatre in 1829, and was given leading comedy character business.Webster was the lessee of the Haymarket from 1837 to 1853;...
became the theatre's manager from 1837 to 1853. He and his successor, John Baldwin Buckstone
John Baldwin Buckstone
John Baldwin Buckstone was an English actor, playwright and comedian who wrote 150 plays, the first of which was produced in 1826....
, established the theatre as a great comedy house, and the theatre hosted most of the great actors of the period.
The latter half of the 19th century
Our American Cousin
Our American Cousin is an 1858 play in three acts by English playwright Tom Taylor. The play is a farce whose plot is based on the introduction of an awkward, boorish but honest American, Asa Trenchard, to his aristocratic English relatives when he goes to England to claim the family estate...
, with Edward Sothern as Lord Dundreary
Lord Dundreary
Lord Dundreary is a character of the 1858 British play Our American Cousin by Tom Taylor. He is the personification of a good-natured, brainless aristocrat. The role was created on stage by Edward Askew Sothern. The most famous scene involved Dundreary reading a letter from his even sillier...
. The play's success brought the word "dreary" into common use. Robertson's David Garrick
David Garrick (play)
David Garrick is a comic play written in 1864 by Thomas William Robertson about the famous 18th century actor and theatre manager, David Garrick....
was a hit in 1864, also with Sothern in the title role. Sothern also starred in H. J. Byron's An English Gentleman at the theatre in 1871.The Times, 2 May 1871, p. 12 W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
premiered seven of his plays at the Haymarket. The first was his early burlesque, Robinson Crusoe; or, The Injun Bride and the Injured Wife (1867, written with Byron, Tom Hood
Tom Hood
Tom Hood , was an English humorist and playwright, son of the poet and author Thomas Hood. A prolific author, he was appointed, in 1865, editor of the magazine Fun. He also founded Tom Hood's Comic Annual in 1867....
, H. S. Leigh and Arthur Sketchley). Gilbert followed this with a number of his blank verse "fairy comedies", the first of which was The Palace of Truth
The Palace of Truth
The Palace of Truth is a three-act blank verse "Fairy Comedy" by W. S. Gilbert first produced at the Haymarket Theatre in London on 19 November 1870, partly adapted from Madame de Genlis's fairy story, Le Palais de Vérite. The play ran for approximately 140 performances and then toured the British...
(1870), produced by Buckstone. These starred William Hunter Kendal
William Hunter Kendal
William Hunter Kendal was an English actor and theatre manager. He and his wife Madge starred at the Haymarket in Shakespearian revivals and the old English comedies beginning in the 1860s. In the 1870s, they starred in a series of "fairy comedies" by W. S. Gilbert and in many plays on the West...
and his wife Madge Robertson Kendal and also included Pygmalion and Galatea (1871), and The Wicked World
The Wicked World
The Wicked World is a blank verse play by W. S. Gilbert in three acts. It opened at the Haymarket Theatre on 1873 and ran for a successful 145 performances, closing on 1873...
(1873). Gilbert also produced here his dramas, Charity
Charity (play)
Charity is a drama in four acts by W. S. Gilbert that explores the issue of a woman who had lived with a man as his wife without ever having married. The play analyses and critiques the double standard in the Victorian era concerning the treatment of men and women who had sex outside of marriage,...
(1874), Dan'l Druce, Blacksmith
Dan'l Druce, Blacksmith
Dan'l Druce, Blacksmith is a play by W. S. Gilbert, styled "A Three-Act Drama of Puritan times". It opened at the Haymarket Theatre in London on 11 September 1876, starring Hermann Vezin, Johnston Forbes-Robertson and Marion Terry. The play was a success, running for about 100 performances and...
(1876), and his most famous play outside of his Savoy Opera
Savoy opera
The Savoy Operas denote a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte built to house...
s, Engaged
Engaged (play)
Engaged is a three-act farcical comic play by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Haymarket Theatre on 3 October 1877, the same year as The Sorcerer, one of Gilbert's comic operas written with Arthur Sullivan, which was soon followed by the collaborators' great success in H.M.S. Pinafore...
, an 1877 farce. Buckstone's ghost has reportedly often been seen at the theatre, particularly during comedies and "when he appreciates things" playing there. In 2009, The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
reported that the actor Patrick Stewart
Patrick Stewart
Sir Patrick Hewes Stewart, OBE is an English film, television and stage actor, who has had a distinguished career in theatre and television for around half a century...
saw the ghost standing in the wings during a performance of Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's...
at the Haymarket.
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
The Zoo
The Zoo
The Zoo is a one-act comic opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by B. C. Stephenson, writing under the pen name of Bolton Rowe. It premiered on 5 June 1875 at the St. James's Theatre in London , concluding its run five weeks later, on 9 July 1875, at the Haymarket Theatre...
transferred to the Haymarket.Goodman In 1879 the house was taken over by the Bancrofts
Squire Bancroft
Sir Squire Bancroft , born Squire White Butterfield, was an English actor-manager. He and his wife Effie Bancroft are considered to have instigated a new form of drama known as 'drawing-room comedy' or 'cup and saucer drama', owing to the realism of their stage sets.-Early life and career:Bancroft...
, who re-opened the theatre with a revival of Edward Bulwer-Lytton's
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton PC , was an English politician, poet, playwright, and novelist. He was immensely popular with the reading public and wrote a stream of bestselling dime-novels which earned him a considerable fortune...
Money, followed by Victorien Sardou
Victorien Sardou
Victorien Sardou was a French dramatist. He is best remembered today for his development, along with Eugène Scribe, of the well-made play...
's Odette (for which they engaged Madame Helena Modjeska
Helena Modjeska
Helena Modjeska Helena Modjeska Helena Modjeska (October 12, 1840 – April 8, 1909, whose actual Polish surname was Modrzejewska , was a renowned actress who specialized in Shakespearean and tragic roles.Modjeska was the mother of Polish-American bridge engineer Ralph Modjeski....
) and Fedora, and Arthur Wing Pinero
Arthur Wing Pinero
Sir Arthur Wing Pinero was an English actor and later an important dramatist and stage director.-Biography:...
's Lords and Commons, with other revivals of previous successes. The auditorium was reconstructed, and the stage enclosed in a complete picture frame proscenium
Proscenium
A proscenium theatre is a theatre space whose primary feature is a large frame or arch , which is located at or near the front of the stage...
, the first in London. The abolition of the pit by the introduction of stalls seating divided by plain iron arms caused a small riot.
Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree was an English actor and theatre manager.Tree began performing in the 1870s. By 1887, he was managing the Haymarket Theatre, winning praise for adventurous programming and lavish productions, and starring in many of its productions. In 1899, he helped fund the...
transferred from the Comedy Theatre with The Red Lamp in 1887. He took over upon the retirement of the Bancrofts and installed electric light in the theatre. Under Tree's management, Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
premiered his first comedy A Woman of No Importance
A Woman of No Importance
A Woman of No Importance is a play by Irish playwright Oscar Wilde. The play premièred on 19 April 1893 at London's Haymarket Theatre. It is a testimony of Wilde's wit and his brand of dark comedy...
in April 1893. In January 1895 Wilde's An Ideal Husband
An Ideal Husband
An Ideal Husband is an 1895 comedic stage play by Oscar Wilde which revolves around blackmail and political corruption, and touches on the themes of public and private honour...
was first performed. Tree's next notable hit was George du Maurier
George du Maurier
George Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier was a French-born British cartoonist and author, known for his cartoons in Punch and also for his novel Trilby. He was the father of actor Gerald du Maurier and grandfather of the writers Angela du Maurier and Dame Daphne du Maurier...
's Trilby, later in 1895. This ran for over 260 performances and made such profits that Tree was able to build Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...
and establish RADA
Rada
Rada is the term for "council" or "assembly"borrowed by Polish from the Low Franconian "Rad" and later passed into the Czech, Ukrainian, and Belarusian languages....
.
In 1896 Cyril Maude and Frederick Harrison became lessees, opening with Under the Red Robe, an adaptation of Stanley Wyman's novel. In 1897 The Little Minister by J. M. Barrie
J. M. Barrie
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright...
ran for 320 performances.
1900 to 1950
In 1904, the auditorium was redesigned in Louis XVI style by C. Stanley Peach.//www.imagesofengland.org.uk/details/default.aspx?pid=2&id=210132 English Heritage listing details. Accessed 28 April 2007 The following year, Maude acquired the Playhouse TheatrePlayhouse Theatre
The Playhouse Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster, located in Northumberland Avenue, near Trafalgar Square. The Theatre was built by F. H. Fowler and Hill with a seating capacity of 1,200. It was rebuilt in 1907 and still retains its original substage machinery...
by Charing Cross Station, leaving Harrison in sole control. In 1909, Herbert Trench produced Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck, also called Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life...
's The Blue Bird
L'Oiseau Bleu
The Blue Bird is a 1908 play by Belgian author Maurice Maeterlinck. It premiered on 30 September 1908 at Constantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre and has been turned into several films and a TV series. The French composer Albert Wolff wrote an opera The Blue Bird is a 1908 play by Belgian...
. Productions from then to the end of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
included Bunty Pulls the Strings (1911), a Scottish comedy by Graham Moffat
Graham Moffat
William Graham Moffat was a Scottish actor, director and playwright. He is best known for his 1910 comedy Bunty Pulls the Strings....
, which ran for 617 performances with Jimmy Finlayson
Jimmy Finlayson
James Henderson "Jimmy" Finlayson was a Scottish actor who worked in both silent and sound comedies. Bald, with a fake moustache, Finlayson had many trademark comic mannerisms and is famous for his squinting, outraged, "double take and fade away" head reaction, and characteristic expression...
in the lead; Ibsen's Ghosts (1914); Elegant Edward, with Henry Daniell
Henry Daniell
Henry Daniell was an English actor, best known for his villainous movie roles, but who had a long and prestigious career on stage as well as in films....
as P. C. Hodson (1915); The Widow's Might (1916), a comedy by Leonard Huskinson and Christopher Sandeman, with Henry Daniell
Henry Daniell
Henry Daniell was an English actor, best known for his villainous movie roles, but who had a long and prestigious career on stage as well as in films....
.Parker, John. 1748 Notable Productions and General Post, a comedy by J. E. Harold Terry, which opened on 14 March 1917 and ran for 532 performances, again with Daniell.
J. M. Barrie
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright...
's Mary Rose had a run of 399 performances. Another long-running production was Yellow Sands
Yellow Sands
Yellow Sands is a play which opened at the Haymarket Theatre, London in 1925, where it ran for 610 performances, and at the Fulton Theatre, New York on September 10, 1927, where it ran for 25 performances, closing in October 1927. It was written by Eden Phillpotts and his daughter Adelaide...
, in which Ralph Richardson
Ralph Richardson
Sir Ralph David Richardson was an English actor, one of a group of theatrical knights of the mid-20th century who, though more closely associated with the stage, also appeared in several classic films....
gave 610 performances in 1926–27. In 1926 Harrison died, and Horace Watson became General Manager under a Trust. His presentations included 632 performances of The First Mrs Fraser, by St. John Ervine, starring Marie Tempest
Marie Tempest
Dame Marie Tempest DBE was an English singer and actress known as the "queen of her profession".Tempest became the most famous soprano in late Victorian light opera and Edwardian musical comedies. Later, she became a leading comic actress and toured widely in North America and elsewhere...
in 1929. In 1939, under Watson's management, work began on excavating a stalls bar, but it was not completed until 1941 owing to the breakout of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Wartime presentations included the London premiere of Noël Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
's Design for Living
Design for Living
Design for Living is a comedy play written by Noël Coward in 1932. It concerns a trio of artistic characters, Gilda, Otto and Leo, and their complicated three-way relationship. Originally written to star Lynn Fontanne, Alfred Lunt and Coward, it was premiered on Broadway, partly because its risqué...
(1939) and John Gielgud
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
's repertory season of The Circle (Somerset Maugham), Love for Love (Congreve
William Congreve
William Congreve was an English playwright and poet.-Early life:Congreve was born in Bardsey, West Yorkshire, England . His parents were William Congreve and his wife, Mary ; a sister was buried in London in 1672...
), Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
, A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
and The Duchess of Malfi
The Duchess of Malfi
The Duchess of Malfi is a macabre, tragic play written by the English dramatist John Webster in 1612–13. It was first performed privately at the Blackfriars Theatre, then before a more general audience at The Globe, in 1613-14...
.
In 1940, Gielgud directed The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today...
, with Michael Redgrave
Michael Redgrave
Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave, CBE was an English stage and film actor, director, manager and author.-Youth and education:...
as Macheath.Gielgud Letters, p. 58 In 1945, two Coward plays, Present Laughter
Present Laughter
Present Laughter is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1939 and first staged in 1942 on tour, alternating with his lower middle-class domestic drama This Happy Breed...
and This Happy Breed
This Happy Breed
This Happy Breed is a play by Noël Coward. It was written in 1939 but, because of the outbreak of World War II, it was not staged until 1942, when it was performed on alternating nights with another Coward play, Present Laughter. The two plays later alternated with Coward's Blithe Spirit...
, alternated. They were followed by Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan
Lady Windermere's Fan
Lady Windermere's Fan, A Play About a Good Woman is a four act comedy by Oscar Wilde, first produced 22 February 1892 at the St James's Theatre in London. The play was first published in 1893...
and The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at St. James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae in order to escape burdensome social obligations...
in 1948, and Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
's The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie is a four-character memory play by Tennessee Williams. Williams worked on various drafts of the play prior to writing a version of it as a screenplay for MGM, to whom Williams was contracted...
directed by Gielgud, starring Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes Brown was an American actress whose career spanned almost 70 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theatre" and was one of twelve people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award...
;Gielgud Letters, p. 119 and The Heiress
The Heiress
The Heiress is a 1949 American drama film. It was written by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, adapted from their 1947 play of the same title that was based on the 1880 novel Washington Square by Henry James. The film was directed by William Wyler, with starring performances by Olivia de Havilland as...
, an adaptation of Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
's Washington Square
Washington Square (novel)
Washington Square is a short novel by Henry James. Originally published in 1880 as a serial in Cornhill Magazine and Harper's New Monthly Magazine, it is a structurally simple tragicomedy that recounts the conflict between a dull but sweet daughter and her brilliant, domineering father...
, directed by Gielgud and starring Ralph Richardson and Peggy Ashcroft
Peggy Ashcroft
Dame Peggy Ashcroft, DBE was an English actress.-Early years:Born as Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft in Croydon, Ashcroft attended the Woodford School, Croydon and the Central School of Speech and Drama...
, who was succeeded by Wendy Hiller
Wendy Hiller
Dame Wendy Margaret Hiller DBE was an Academy Award-winning English film and stage actress, who enjoyed a varied acting career that spanned nearly sixty years. The writer Joel Hirschorn, in his 1984 compilation Rating the Movie Stars, described her as "a no-nonsense actress who literally took...
(1949–50).Sinden, p 150
1950–80
In 1951–52 Waters of the Moon by N. C. Hunter starred Sybil ThorndikeSybil Thorndike
Dame Agnes Sybil Thorndike CH DBE was a British actress.-Early life:She was born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire to Arthur Thorndike and Agnes Macdonald. Her father was a Canon of Rochester Cathedral...
, Edith Evans
Edith Evans
Dame Edith Mary Evans, DBE was a British actress. She was known for her work on the British stage. She also appeared in a number of films, for which she received three Academy Award nominations, plus a BAFTA and a Golden Globe award.Evans was particularly effective at portraying haughty...
and Wendy Hiller. For the Coronation season in 1953, Coward gave a rare performance in a play not written by him, The Apple Cart
The Apple Cart
The Apple Cart: A Political Extravaganza is a 1928 play by George Bernard Shaw. It is satirical comedy about several political philosophies which are expounded by the characters, often in lengthy monologue...
by George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
, with Margaret Leighton as his co-star. To Coward, the Haymarket was "the most perfect theatre in the world".Lesley, p. 316 In 1956, Stuart Watson died and was succeeded by his son, Anthony. Productions under the new management included Flowering Cherry by Robert Bolt (1957) starring Ralph Richardson
Ralph Richardson
Sir Ralph David Richardson was an English actor, one of a group of theatrical knights of the mid-20th century who, though more closely associated with the stage, also appeared in several classic films....
and Celia Johnson
Celia Johnson
Dame Celia Elizabeth Johnson DBE was an English actress.She began her stage acting career in 1928, and subsequently achieved success in West End and Broadway productions. She also appeared in several films, including the romantic drama Brief Encounter , for which she received a nomination for the...
; Ross
Ross (Play)
Ross is a 1960 play by British playwright Terence Rattigan.It is a biographical play of T. E. Lawrence- Plot synopsis :The play is structured with a framing device set in 1922, when Lawrence was hiding under an assumed name as "Aircraftman Ross" in the Royal Air Force, and is being disciplined by...
by Terence Rattigan
Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan CBE was one of England's most popular 20th-century dramatists. His plays are generally set in an upper-middle-class background...
(1960) and John Gielgud's production of The School for Scandal
The School for Scandal
The School for Scandal is a play written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. It was first performed in London at Drury Lane Theatre on May 8, 1777.The prologue, written by David Garrick, commends the play, its subject, and its author to the audience...
, with Ralph Richardson and Margaret Rutherford
Margaret Rutherford
Dame Margaret Taylor Rutherford DBE was an English character actress, who first came to prominence following World War II in the film adaptations of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest...
. In the 1960s, notable presentations included The Tulip Bee by N. C. Hunter starring Celia Johnson and John Clements
John Clements
Sir John Selby Clements, CBE was an English actor and producer who worked in theatre, television and film.Clements attended St Paul's School and St John's College, Cambridge University then worked with Nigel Playfair and afterwards spent a few years in Ben Greet's Shakespearean Company. He made...
and Thornton Wilder
Thornton Wilder
Thornton Niven Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He received three Pulitzer Prizes, one for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and two for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and a National Book Award for his novel The Eighth Day.-Early years:Wilder was born in Madison,...
's Ides of March directed by Gielgud (both 1963).
In 1971, Louis I. Michaels became the lessee of the theatre. Productions of the decade included a revival of Enid Bagnold
Enid Bagnold
Enid Algerine Bagnold, Lady Jones, CBE , known by her maiden name as Enid Bagnold, was a British author and playwright, best known for the 1935 story National Velvet which was filmed in 1944 with Elizabeth Taylor....
's The Chalk Garden
The Chalk Garden
The Chalk Garden is a play by Enid Bagnold that premiered on Broadway in 1955. The play tells the story of Mrs. St Maugham and her granddaughter Laurel, a disturbed child under Miss Madrigal's care. The setting of the play was inspired by Bagnold's own garden at North End House in Rottingdean, near...
, with Gladys Cooper
Gladys Cooper
Dame Gladys Constance Cooper, DBE was an English actress whose career spanned seven decades on stage, in films and on television....
(1971); the long-running A Voyage Round My Father
A Voyage Round My Father
A Voyage Round My Father is an autobiographical play by John Mortimer, later adapted for television.The first version of the play appeared as a series of three half-hour sketches for BBC radio in 1963. It then became a television play with Ian Richardson playing Mortimer, Tim Good as the young...
(John Mortimer
John Mortimer
Sir John Clifford Mortimer, CBE, QC was a British barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author.-Early life:...
) starring Alec Guinness
Alec Guinness
Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE was an English actor. He was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. He later won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai...
, succeeded by Michael Redgrave (1971–72); and, in 1972, Crown Matrimonial by Royce Ryton, starring Wendy Hiller as Queen Mary
Mary of Teck
Mary of Teck was the queen consort of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, as the wife of King-Emperor George V....
. Later productions were Edith Evans and Friends (1974); a revival of On Approval (Frederick Lonsdale
Frederick Lonsdale
Frederick Lonsdale was an English dramatist.-Personal life:Lonsdale was born Lionel Frederick Leonard in St Helier, Jersey, the son of Susan and John Henry Leonard, a tobacconist. He began as a private soldier and worked for the London and South Western Railway...
) with Geraldine McEwan
Geraldine McEwan
Geraldine McEwan is an English actor with a diverse history in theatre, film, and television. From 2004 to 2009 she appeared as Miss Marple, the Agatha Christie sleuth, for the series Marple.-Background:...
and Edward Woodward
Edward Woodward
Edward Albert Arthur Woodward, OBE was an English stage and screen actor and singer. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art , Woodward began his career on stage, and throughout his career he appeared in productions in both the West End in London and on Broadway in New York...
(1975); The Circle, with Googie Withers
Googie Withers
Georgette Lizette "Googie" Withers CBE, AO was an English theatre, film and television actress. She was a longtime resident of Australia with her husband, the actor John McCallum, with whom she often appeared.-Biography:...
and John McCallum
John McCallum
John McCallum, PC, MP is a Liberal Canadian politician, economist and university professor. Following the 2006 Federal Election, he became the Liberal Finance Critic in the Official Opposition Shadow Cabinet...
(1976); Rosmersholm
Rosmersholm
Rosmersholm is a play written in 1886 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. In the estimation of many critics the piece is Ibsen's masterwork, only equalled by The Wild Duck of 1884...
(Ibsen) with Claire Bloom
Claire Bloom
Claire Bloom is an English film and stage actress.-Early life:Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales...
and Daniel Massey
Daniel Massey (actor)
Daniel Raymond Massey was an English actor and performer. He is possibly best known for his starring role in the British TV drama The Roads to Freedom, as Daniel, alongside Michael Bryant...
(1977); The Millionairess (Shaw), with Penelope Keith
Penelope Keith
Penelope Anne Constance Keith, CBE, DL is an English actress.Having started her television career in the 1950s, Penelope Keith became a household name in the United Kingdom in the 1970s when she played Margo Leadbetter in the sitcom The Good Life...
; Waters of the Moon again, starring Wendy Hiller and Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films. She won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and the Tony Award for Best Actress. She is ranked as the fourth greatest female star of American cinema of all time by the American Film Institute...
in her last stage role (both 1978); and Keith Michell
Keith Michell
Keith Michell is an Australian actor, particularly noted for his television and film performances as King Henry VIII of England.- Early life :He was born in Adelaide and brought up in Warnertown, near Port Pirie...
and Susan Hampshire
Susan Hampshire
Susan Hampshire, Lady Kulukundis, OBE is an English actress, best-known for her many television and film roles.-Early life:Susan Hampshire was born in Kensington, London, the youngest of four children. She had two sisters and one brother...
in The Crucifer of Blood
The Crucifer of Blood
The Crucifer of Blood is a play by Paul Giovanni that is adapted from the Arthur Conan Doyle story The Sign of the Four. It depicts the character Irene St...
(1979).
1980–2000
The theatre then presented Make and Break (Michael FraynMichael Frayn
Michael J. Frayn is an English playwright and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce Noises Off and the dramas Copenhagen and Democracy...
), with Leonard Rossiter
Leonard Rossiter
Leonard Rossiter was an English actor known for his roles as Rupert Rigsby, in the British comedy television series Rising Damp , and Reginald Iolanthe Perrin, in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin...
(1980). The following year, Louis Michaels died, and the theatre passed to a company, Louis I Michaels Ltd, with President, Enid Chanelle and Chairman, Arnold M Crook. They presented Overheard, by and starring Peter Ustinov
Peter Ustinov
Peter Alexander Ustinov CBE was an English actor, writer and dramatist. He was also renowned as a filmmaker, theatre and opera director, stage designer, author, screenwriter, comedian, humourist, newspaper and magazine columnist, radio broadcaster and television presenter...
; and Virginia, with Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith
Dame Margaret Natalie Smith, DBE , better known as Maggie Smith, is an English film, stage, and television actress who made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 59 years...
(1981). In 1982, the Haymarket staged a repertory season of Hobson's Choice, starring Penelope Keith; A Coat of Varnish (Ronald Millar); Captain Brassbound's Conversion
Captain Brassbound's Conversion
Captain Brassbound's Conversion is a play by G. Bernard Shaw. It was published in Shaw's 1901 collection Three Plays for Puritans . The first American production of the play starred Ellen Terry in 1907....
(Shaw); Uncle Vanya
Uncle Vanya
Uncle Vanya is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1897 and received its Moscow première in 1899 in a production by the Moscow Art Theatre, under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski....
(Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
); Rules of the Game (Luigi Pirandello
Luigi Pirandello
Luigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934, for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written...
); and Man and Superman
Man and Superman
Man and Superman is a four-act drama, written by George Bernard Shaw in 1903. The series was written in response to calls for Shaw to write a play based on the Don Juan theme. Man and Superman opened at The Royal Court Theatre in London on 23 May 1905, but with the omission of the 3rd Act...
(Shaw), starring Peter O'Toole
Peter O'Toole
Peter Seamus Lorcan O'Toole is an Irish actor of stage and screen. O'Toole achieved stardom in 1962 playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, and then went on to become a highly-honoured film and stage actor. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, and holds the record for most...
. In 1983, productions included The School for Scandal, starring Donald Sinden
Donald Sinden
Sir Donald Alfred Sinden CBE is an English actor of theatre, film and television.-Personal life:Sinden was born in Plymouth, Devon, England, on 9 October 1923. The son of Alfred Edward Sinden and his wife Mabel Agnes , he grew up in the Sussex village of Ditchling, where their home doubled as the...
; Heartbreak House
Heartbreak House
Heartbreak House is a play written by George Bernard Shaw, first published in 1919 and first played at the Garrick Theatre in 1920. According to A. C. Ward, the work argues that "cultured, leisured Europe" was drifting toward destruction, and that "Those in a position to guide Europe to safety...
(Shaw), starring Rex Harrison
Rex Harrison
Sir Reginald Carey “Rex” Harrison was an English actor of stage and screen. Harrison won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards.-Youth and stage career:...
; Ben Kingsley
Ben Kingsley
Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE is a British actor. He has won an Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
in a one-man show about Edmund Kean
Edmund Kean
Edmund Kean was an English actor, regarded in his time as the greatest ever.-Early life:Kean was born in London. His father was probably Edmund Kean, an architect’s clerk, and his mother was an actress, Anne Carey, daughter of the 18th century composer and playwright Henry Carey...
; A Patriot for Me
A Patriot for Me
A Patriot For Me is a 1965 play by the English playwright John Osborne, based on the true story of Alfred Redl. It was notable for being denied a licence for performance by the censor of the time....
(John Osborne
John Osborne
John James Osborne was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor and critic of the Establishment. The success of his 1956 play Look Back in Anger transformed English theatre....
); The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard is Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's last play. It premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre 17 January 1904 in a production directed by Constantin Stanislavski. Chekhov intended this play as a comedy and it does contain some elements of farce; however, Stanislavski insisted on...
(Chekhov); and The Sleeping Prince (Terence Rattigan
Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan CBE was one of England's most popular 20th-century dramatists. His plays are generally set in an upper-middle-class background...
).
Productions in 1984 were The Aspern Papers
The Aspern Papers
The Aspern Papers is a novella written by Henry James, originally published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1888, with its first book publication later in the same year. One of James' best-known and most acclaimed longer tales, The Aspern Papers is based on an anecdote that James heard about a Shelley...
by Henry James, starring Christopher Reeve
Christopher Reeve
Christopher D'Olier Reeve was an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, author and activist...
, Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...
and Wendy Hiller; Aren't We All?
Aren't We All?
Aren't We All? is a play by Frederick Lonsdale.At the core of the drawing room comedy's slim plot is the Hon. William Tatham who, having been consigned to the proverbial doghouse for a romantic indiscretion, is determined to catch his self-righteous wife in an extramarital kiss of her own, while a...
(Frederick Lonsdale) starring Claudette Colbert
Claudette Colbert
Claudette Colbert was a French-born American-based actress of stage and film.Born in Paris, France and raised in New York City, Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the 1920s, progressing to film with the advent of talking pictures...
; and The Way of the World
The Way of the World
The Way of the World is a play written by British playwright William Congreve. It premiered in 1700 in the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields in London...
(Congreve
William Congreve
William Congreve was an English playwright and poet.-Early life:Congreve was born in Bardsey, West Yorkshire, England . His parents were William Congreve and his wife, Mary ; a sister was buried in London in 1672...
). In 1985, Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,...
starred in Sweet Bird of Youth
Sweet Bird of Youth
Sweet Bird of Youth is a 1959 play by Tennessee Williams which tells the story of a gigolo and drifter, Chance Wayne, who returns to his home town as the accompaniment of a faded movie star, Princess Kosmonopolis , whom he hopes to use to help him break into the movies...
(Tennessee Williams), followed by Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
's Old Times
Old Times
Old Times is a play by the Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter. It was first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre in London on June 1, 1971. It starred Colin Blakely, Dorothy Tutin, and Vivien Merchant, and was directed by Peter Hall...
. In 1986 the theatre presented Antony and Cleopatra
Antony and Cleopatra
Antony and Cleopatra is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607. It was first printed in the First Folio of 1623. The plot is based on Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives and follows the relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony...
, starring Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...
; Breaking the Code (Hugh Whitmore), starring Derek Jacobi
Derek Jacobi
Sir Derek George Jacobi, CBE is an English actor and film director.A "forceful, commanding stage presence", Jacobi has enjoyed a highly successful stage career, appearing in such stage productions as Hamlet, Uncle Vanya, and Oedipus the King. He received a Tony Award for his performance in...
as Alan Turing
Alan Turing
Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS , was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine, which played a...
; Long Day's Journey Into Night
Long Day's Journey Into Night
Long Day's Journey Into Night is a 1956 drama in four acts written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play is widely considered to be his masterwork...
, starring Jack Lemmon
Jack Lemmon
John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III was an American actor and musician. He starred in more than 60 films including Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Mister Roberts , Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, Irma la Douce, The Odd Couple, Save the Tiger John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III (February 8, 1925June...
; and The Apple Cart, starring Peter O'Toole. 1987 productions included Mad Bad and Dangerous to Know (Jane McCulloch) and Melon (Simon Gray). In 1988, another Tennessee Williams play, Orpheus Descending, starred Vanessa Redgrave; later productions that year were You Never Can Tell (Shaw); The Deep Blue Sea (Rattigan); and The Admirable Crichton
The Admirable Crichton
The Admirable Crichton is a comic stage play written in 1902 by J. M. Barrie. It was produced by Charles Frohman and opened at the Duke of York's Theatre in London on 4 November 1902, running for an extremely successful 828 performances. It starred H. B. Irving and Irene Vanbrugh...
(J. M. Barrie
J. M. Barrie
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright...
). The 1980s ended at the Haymarket with The Royal Baccarat Scandal (Royce Ryton); Veterans' Day (Donald Freed
Donald Freed
Donald Freed is an American playwright, novelist, screenwriter, and actor. He is associated with writing programs at the University of Southern California, and was Artist in Residence at the Workshop Theatre, University of Leeds, UK , and Playwright in Residence at York Theatre Royal ,...
); and A Life In The Theatre (David Mamet
David Mamet
David Alan Mamet is an American playwright, essayist, screenwriter and film director.Best known as a playwright, Mamet won a Pulitzer Prize and received a Tony nomination for Glengarry Glen Ross . He also received a Tony nomination for Speed-the-Plow . As a screenwriter, he received Oscar...
).
In 1990, the Haymarket revived London Assurance (Dion Boucicault
Dion Boucicault
Dionysius Lardner Boursiquot , commonly known as Dion Boucicault, was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-managers then in the...
). This was followed by An Evening with Peter Ustinov and Gasping (Ben Elton
Ben Elton
Benjamin Charles "Ben" Elton is an English comedian, author, playwright and director. He was a leading figure in the British alternative comedy movement of the 1980s, as a writer on such cult series as The Young Ones and Blackadder, as well as also a successful stand-up comedian on stage and TV....
). The next year, the theatre presented Silly Cow (Ben Elton); John Sessions
John Sessions
John Gibb Marshall , better known by the stage name John Sessions, is a Scottish actor and comedian. He is known for comedy improvisation in television shows such as Whose Line Is It Anyway?; as a panellist on QI; and as a character actor in numerous films, both in the UK and in Hollywood.-Early...
' Travelling Tales; and Jean Anouilh
Jean Anouilh
Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh was a French dramatist whose career spanned five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1943 play Antigone, an adaptation of Sophocles' Classical drama, that was seen as an attack on Marshal Pétain's...
's Becket, starring Derek Jacobi and Robert Lindsay
Robert Lindsay (actor)
Robert Lindsay is an English actor who is best known for his television work, especially his roles of Wolfie Smith in Citizen Smith, Michael Murray in G.B.H., Captain Sir Edward Pellew in Hornblower and Ben Harper in My Family which has been on television screens since 2000.-Early life:Lindsay was...
. Lindsay also starred in a revival of Cyrano de Bergerac
Cyrano de Bergerac (play)
Cyrano de Bergerac is a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. Although there was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, the play bears very scant resemblance to his life....
in 1992. This was succeeeded by new productions of Heartbreak House and A Woman of No Importance.
In 1994 the theatre closed for a £1.3 million refurbishment, re-opening later that year with An Evening with Peter Ustinov, followed by Arcadia (Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...
). Burning Blue (1995), a new play by the first time playwright David Greer, was followed by the veteran director Peter Hall's revival of Ibsen's The Master Builder
The Master Builder
The Master Builder is a play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was first published in December 1892 and is regarded as one of Ibsen's most significant and revealing works.-Performance:...
, starring Alan Bates
Alan Bates
Sir Alan Arthur Bates CBE was an English actor, who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he demonstrated his versatility in films ranging from the popular children’s story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving...
. Hall also directed the 1996 An Ideal Husband
An Ideal Husband
An Ideal Husband is an 1895 comedic stage play by Oscar Wilde which revolves around blackmail and political corruption, and touches on the themes of public and private honour...
(Oscar Wilde) 100 years after its première at the Haymarket; the new production featured Martin Shaw
Martin Shaw
Martin Shaw is an English actor. He is best known for his roles in shows such as The Professionals, The Chief, Judge John Deed and Inspector George Gently.-Theatrical background:...
as Lord Goring. Another production of 1996 was Neil Simon
Neil Simon
Neil Simon is an American playwright and screenwriter. He has written numerous Broadway plays, including Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, and The Odd Couple. He won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Lost In Yonkers. He has written the screenplays for several of his plays that...
's The Odd Couple
The Odd Couple
The Odd Couple is a 1965 Broadway play by Neil Simon, followed by a successful film and television series, as well as other derivative works and spin offs, many featuring one or more of the same actors. The plot concerns two mismatched roommates, one neat and uptight, the other more easygoing and...
, starring Tony Randall
Tony Randall
Tony Randall was a U.S. actor, comic, producer and director.-Early years:Randall was born Arthur Leonard Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Julia and Mogscha Rosenberg, an art and antiques dealer...
and Jack Klugman
Jack Klugman
Jacob Joachim "Jack" Klugman is an American stage, film and television actor known for his roles in sitcoms, movies, and television and on Broadway...
. Hall was in charge again for the 1997 production of A Streetcar Named Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire (play)
A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1947 play written by American playwright Tennessee Williams for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948. The play opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947, and closed on December 17, 1949, in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The Broadway production was...
(Tennessee Williams), starring Jessica Lange
Jessica Lange
Jessica Phyllis Lange is an American actress who has worked in film, theatre and television. The recipient of several awards, including two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes and one Emmy, Lange is regarded as one of the première female actors of her generation.Lange was discovered by producer...
; Lady Windermere's Fan; and An Ideal Husband (returning after touring). The last production of that year was A Delicate Balance (Edward Albee), starring Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith
Dame Margaret Natalie Smith, DBE , better known as Maggie Smith, is an English film, stage, and television actress who made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 59 years...
, John Standing
John Standing
Sir John Ronald Leon Standing, 4th Baronet is an English actor.-Early life:Standing was born John Ronald Leon in London, the son of Kay Hammond , an actress, and Sir Ronald George Leon, a stockbroker...
, Annette Crosbie
Annette Crosbie
Annette Crosbie, OBE is a Scottish character actor.-Life and career:Crosbie was born in Gorebridge, Midlothian, Scotland, to Presbyterian parents who disapproved of her becoming an actor. Nevertheless, she joined the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School while still in her teens...
and Eileen Atkins
Eileen Atkins
Dame Eileen June Atkins, DBE is an English actress and occasional screenwriter.- Early life :Atkins was born in the Mothers' Hospital in Clapton, a Salvation Army women's hostel in East London...
.
In 1998, Shakespeare's Villains
Shakespeare's Villains
Shakespeare's Villains is a one-man play, created and performed by Steven Berkoff.Following its first run at London's Theatre Royal, Haymarket where it was produced by Berkoffs East Productions and Marc Sinden , it was nominated for The Society of London Theatre Laurence Olivier Award for Best...
a one-man play, created and performed by Steven Berkoff
Steven Berkoff
Steven Berkoff is an English actor, writer and director. Best known for his performance as General Orlov in the James Bond film Octopussy, he is typically cast in villanous roles, such as Lt...
at the theatre was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Entertainment. Later that year, Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love
The Invention of Love
The Invention of Love is a 1997 play by Tom Stoppard portraying the life of poet A.E. Housman, focusing specifically on his personal life and love for a college classmate. The play is written from the viewpoint of Housman dealing with his memories towards the end of his life and contains many...
, starring John Wood
John Wood (English actor)
John Wood, CBE was an English actor.-Biography:Wood was born in Derbyshire and studied law at Jesus College, Oxford where he was president of the Oxford University Dramatic Society. Changing to drama, Wood became known as a stage actor, appearing in numerous West End productions as well as on...
, transferred from the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
. In 1999, Fascinating Aida
Fascinating Aida
Fascinating Aïda is a British comedy singing group and satirical cabaret act, which has retired twice, most recently in 2004. After the death in 2007 of the group's pianist and musical director, Russell Churney, all plans for a new show were shelved. Some of their most famous songs include...
's comic revue was followed by Neil Simon's The Prisoner of Second Avenue
The Prisoner of Second Avenue
The Prisoner of Second Avenue is an American black comedy play by Neil Simon, later made into a film released in 1975.The play ran on Broadway from November 1971 until September 1973, with Peter Falk and Lee Grant starring as Mel and Edna Edison, and Vincent Gardenia as Mel's brother Harry. The...
, with Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Stephen Dreyfuss is an American actor best known for starring in a number of film, television, and theater roles since the late 1960s, including the films American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goodbye Girl, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, Stakeout, Always, What About...
and Marsha Mason
Marsha Mason
Marsha Mason is an American actress and television director.She received four Academy Award nominations as Best Actress for her performances in Cinderella Liberty, The Goodbye Girl, Chapter Two, and Only When I Laugh. She is also known for starring in the 1986 film Heartbreak Ridge.-Life:Mason was...
; Love Letters
Love Letters (play)
Love Letters is a Pulitzer Prize for Drama nominated play by A. R. Gurney. The play centers on just two characters, Melissa Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III...
, by A. R. Gurney
A. R. Gurney
A. R. Gurney is an American playwright and novelist. He is known for works including Love Letters, The Cocktail Hour, and The Dining Room. Gurney currently lives in both New York and Connecticut....
, with Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...
; and a transfer of the Chichester Festival
Chichester Festival Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre, located in Chichester, England, was designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, and opened by its founder Leslie Evershed-Martin in 1962. Subsequently the smaller and more intimate Minerva Theatre was built nearby in 1989....
's The Importance of Being Earnest, starring Patricia Routledge
Patricia Routledge
Katherine Patricia Routledge, CBE is an English character comedy actress and singer. She is best known for her role as character Hyacinth Bucket in the British television series Keeping Up Appearances and Hetty Wainthropp in the British television series Hetty Wainthropp Investigates...
.
The 21st century
Productions at the Haymarket in 2000 included Collected Stories (Donald Marguiles), starring Helen MirrenHelen Mirren
Dame Helen Mirren, DBE is an English actor. She has won an Academy Award for Best Actress, four SAG Awards, four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, four Emmy Awards, and two Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Awards.-Early life and family:...
, and August Strindberg
August Strindberg
Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography,...
's Miss Julie
Miss Julie
Miss Julie is a naturalistic play written in 1888 by August Strindberg dealing with class, love, lust, the battle of the sexes, and the interaction among them...
, followed in 2001 by The Blue Room by David Hare
David Hare (dramatist)
Sir David Hare is an English playwright and theatre and film director.-Early life:Hare was born in St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings, East Sussex, the son of Agnes and Clifford Hare, a sailor. He was educated at Lancing, an independent school in West Sussex, and at Jesus College, Cambridge...
; Japes by Simon Gray
Simon Gray
Simon James Holliday Gray, CBE , was an English playwright and memoirist who also had a career as a university lecturer in English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years...
, directed by Peter Hall; and The Royal Family (Edna Ferber
Edna Ferber
Edna Ferber was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels were especially popular and included the Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big , Show Boat , and Giant .-Early years:Ferber was born August 15, 1885, in Kalamazoo, Michigan,...
), starring Judi Dench
Judi Dench
Dame Judith Olivia "Judi" Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English film, stage and television actress.Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years she played in several of William Shakespeare's plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo...
. In 2002 the theatre presented Lady Windermere's Fan, directed by Peter Hall starring Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...
and Joely Richardson
Joely Richardson
Joely Kim Richardson is an English actress, most known recently for her role as Queen Catherine Parr in the Showtime television show The Tudors and Julia McNamara in the television drama Nip/Tuck...
; Rose Rage, an adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry VI plays, directed by Edward Hall
Edward Hall (director)
Edward Hall is an English theatre director and an associate director at The National Theatre. Hall is known for directing Rose Rage, a stage adaptation of Shakespeare's three Henry VI plays. He also runs an all-male Shakespeare company, Propeller...
; and Judi Dench and Maggie Smith appeared on stage together for the first time in over 40 years in The Breath of Life
The Breath of Life (play)
The Breath of Life is a play by dramatist David Hare. It tells the story of a woman who is confronted by the wife of her lover. Over the course of one day and one night, the two women reflect on their lives and the relationship with the central, yet offstage, male character.Of the central theme of...
by David Hare
David Hare (dramatist)
Sir David Hare is an English playwright and theatre and film director.-Early life:Hare was born in St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings, East Sussex, the son of Agnes and Clifford Hare, a sailor. He was educated at Lancing, an independent school in West Sussex, and at Jesus College, Cambridge...
. Productions in 2003 were The Rat Pack: Live From Las Vegas
The Rat Pack: Live From Las Vegas
The Rat Pack - Live From Las Vegas is a stage musical produced by Flying Music Ltd. that retells the tale of the big three of the Rat Pack - Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr...
, Brand
Brand (play)
Brand is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It is a verse tragedy, written in 1865 and first performed in Stockholm on 24 March 1867. Brand was an intellectual play that provoked much original thought....
(Ibsen) directed by Adrian Noble
Adrian Noble
Adrian Keith Noble is a theatre director, and was also the artistic director and chief executive of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1990 to 2003.-Education and career:...
, starring Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes is an English actor and film director. He has appeared in such films as The English Patient, In Bruges, The Constant Gardener, Strange Days, The Duchess and Schindler's List....
, and A Woman of No Importance, with Rupert Graves
Rupert Graves
Rupert Graves is an English film, television and theatre actor. He is best known for his role as DI Lestrade in the critically acclaimed television series Sherlock.-Early life:...
, Samantha Bond and Prunella Scales
Prunella Scales
Prunella Scales CBE is an English actress, known for her role as Basil Fawlty's long-suffering wife in the British comedy Fawlty Towers and her award-nominated role as Queen Elizabeth II in the British film A Question of Attribution.-Career:Throughout her long career, Scales has usually been cast...
, also directed by Noble.
In 2004, the theatre presented a stage production of the film, When Harry Met Sally, starring Luke Perry
Luke Perry
Luke Perry is an American actor. Perry starred as Dylan McKay on the TV series Beverly Hills, 90210, a role he played from 1990–95, and then from 1998–2000. Much publicity was garnered over the fact that even though he was playing a sixteen-year-old when 90210 began, Perry was actually in his...
and Alyson Hannigan
Alyson Hannigan
Alyson Lee Hannigan is an American actress. She is known for her roles as Willow Rosenberg in the cult classic television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Michelle Flaherty in three American Pie films, and Lily Aldrin on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother.-Early life:Hannigan was born in...
, during which the house closed for two nights after bits of the ceiling fell down during a performance injuring about 13 people. It was followed by Singular Sensations, a season of performances by Barbara Cook
Barbara Cook
Barbara Cook is an American singer and actress who first came to prominence in the 1950s after starring in the original Broadway musicals Candide and The Music Man among others, winning a Tony Award for the latter...
, Michael Feinstein
Michael Feinstein
Michael Jay Feinstein is an American singer, pianist, and music revivalist. He is an interpreter of, and an anthropologist and archivist for, the repertoire known as the Great American Songbook. In 1988 he won a Drama Desk Special Award for celebrating American musical theatre songs...
, Michael Ball
Michael Ball (singer)
Michael Ashley Ball, born 27 June 1962) is a British actor, singer, and radio and TV presenter who is best known for the song "Love Changes Everything" and musical theatre roles such as Marius in Les Misérables, Alex in Aspects of Love, Caractacus Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Edna Turnblad...
and Joshua Rifkin
Joshua Rifkin
Joshua Rifkin is an American conductor, keyboard player, and musicologist. He is best known by the general public for having played a central role in the ragtime revival in the 1970s with the three albums he recorded of Scott Joplin's works for Nonesuch Records, and to classical musicians for his...
. The last production of 2004 was a revival of Becket
Becket
Becket or The Honor of God is a play written in French by Jean Anouilh. It is a depiction of the conflict between Thomas Becket and King Henry II of England leading to Becket's murder in 1170. It contains many historical inaccuracies, which the author acknowledged.-Background:Anouilh's...
by Anouilh. 2005 productions were Victoria Wood
Victoria Wood
Victoria Wood CBE is a British comedienne, actress, singer-songwriter, screenwriter and director. Wood has written and starred in sketches, plays, films and sitcoms, and her live stand-up comedy act is interspersed with her own compositions, which she accompanies on piano...
's Acorn Antiques The Musical, starring Julie Walters
Julie Walters
Julie Walters, CBE is an English actress and novelist. She came to international prominence in 1983 for Educating Rita, performing in the title role opposite Michael Caine. It was a role she had created on the West End stage and it won her BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for Best Actress...
, Celia Imrie
Celia Imrie
Celia Diana Savile Imrie is an English actress. In a career starting in the early 1970s, Imrie has played Marianne Bellshade in Bergerac, Philippa Moorcroft in Dinnerladies, Miss Babs in Acorn Antiques, Diana Neal in After You've Gone and Gloria Millington in Kingdom...
and Duncan Preston
Duncan Preston
Duncan Preston is an English actor probably best known for his appearances in television productions written by Victoria Wood. His best remembered roles are Clifford in the Victoria Wood As Seen On TV soap opera parody Acorn Antiques , and Stan in dinnerladies.In July 2010, Preston revealed he was...
, directed by Trevor Nunn
Trevor Nunn
Sir Trevor Robert Nunn, CBE is an English theatre, film and television director. Nunn has been the Artistic Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He has directed musicals and dramas for the stage, as well as opera...
; The Genius of Ray Charles
The Genius of Ray Charles
The Genius of Ray Charles is a 1959 album by Ray Charles. In 2003, the album was ranked number 263 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time....
; and A Few Good Men, starring Rob Lowe
Rob Lowe
Robert Hepler "Rob" Lowe is an American actor. Lowe came to prominence after appearing in films such as The Outsiders, Oxford Blues, About Last Night..., St. Elmo's Fire, and Wayne's World. On television, Lowe is known for his role as Sam Seaborn on The West Wing and his role as Senator Robert...
, Suranne Jones
Suranne Jones
Suranne Jones is an English actress. She first rose to prominence playing the role of Karen McDonald in ITV1's soap opera Coronation Street over a period of four years...
and Jack Ellis. 2006 featured three revivals: A Man for All Seasons
A Man for All Seasons
A Man for All Seasons is a play by Robert Bolt. An early form of the play had been written for BBC Radio in 1954, and a one-hour live television version starring Bernard Hepton was produced in 1957 by the BBC, but after Bolt's success with The Flowering Cherry, he reworked it for the stage.It was...
, starring Martin Shaw; Coward's Hay Fever
Hay Fever
Hay Fever is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1924 and first produced in 1925 with Marie Tempest as the first Judith Bliss. Laura Hope Crews played the role in New York...
, with Judi Dench and Peter Bowles
Peter Bowles
-Early life:Bowles was born in London, England, the son of Sarah Jane and Herbert Reginald Bowles. His father was a chauffeur and butler at a stately home in Warwickshire; but, upon the outbreak of World War II, he was seconded to work as an engineer at Rolls-Royce and moved the family to Nottingham...
; and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (musical)
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is a musical with a book by Lawrence Kasha and David Landay, music by Gene de Paul, Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn, and lyrics by Johnny Mercer, Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn...
, starring Dave Willetts
Dave Willetts
Dave Willetts is an English singer and actor known for having leading roles in West End musicals.Willetts is something of an enigma in that he has had no formal singing, dancing, or acting lessons. Before he was 20 he rarely visited the theatre...
and Shona Lindsay. The last production of that year was Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks, starring Claire Bloom and Billy Zane
Billy Zane
William George "Billy" Zane, Jr. is an American actor, producer and director. He is probably best known for his roles as Caledon Hockley in Titanic, The Phantom from The Phantom, John Wheeler in Twin Peaks and Mr...
.
The first production of 2007 was Pinter's People
Pinter's People
Pinter's People is a compilation of revue sketches or short prose works by Harold Pinter, which was performed for four weeks from 30 January 2007, at the Haymarket Theatre, in London, starring Bill Bailey, Geraldine McNulty, Sally Phillips, and Kevin Eldon...
, a compilation of Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
sketches of the past 40 years, staged by a company of four, led by Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey is an English comedian, musician and actor. As well as his extensive stand-up work, Bailey is well known for his appearances on Black Books, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Have I Got News for You, and QI.Bailey was listed by The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy in...
; later productions of that year were The Lady from Dubuque
The Lady From Dubuque
The Lady from Dubuque, a play by Edward Albee, opened on Broadway at the Morosco Theatre on January 31, 1980. It closed there after a mere 12 performances...
(Albee), starring Maggie Smith; David Suchet
David Suchet
David Suchet, CBE, is an English actor, known for his work on British television. He is recognised for his RTS- and BPG award-winning performance as Augustus Melmotte in the 2001 British TV mini-drama The Way We Live Now, alongside Matthew Macfadyen and Paloma Baeza, and a 1991 British Academy...
in The Last Confession
The Last Confession
The Last Confession is a stage play by Roger Crane based around the election and death of Pope John Paul I. The play follows Giovanni Benelli who recounts, during his last confession, his role in the death of John Paul and how this led him to lose his faith.-Plot:Disturbed by the corruption in...
; and The Country Wife
The Country Wife
The Country Wife is a Restoration comedy written in 1675 by William Wycherley. A product of the tolerant early Restoration period, the play reflects an aristocratic and anti-Puritan ideology, and was controversial for its sexual explicitness even in its own time. The title itself contains a lewd pun...
, starring Toby Stephens
Toby Stephens
Toby Stephens is an English stage, television and film actor who has appeared in films in both Hollywood and Bollywood. He is best known for playing megavillain Gustav Graves in the James Bond film Die Another Day , Edward Fairfax Rochester in the BBC television adaptation of Jane Eyre and Philip...
, Patricia Hodge
Patricia Hodge
Patricia Ann Hodge is an English actor.-Early life:The daughter of the Royal Hotel owner/manager Eric and his wife Marion , Hodge attended Wintringham Girls' Grammar School on Weelsby Avenue in Grimsby and then St...
and David Haig
David Haig
David Haig is an Olivier Award-winning English actor and FIPA Award-winning writer. He is known for his versatility, having played dramatic, serio-comic and comedic roles, playing characters of varied social classes...
. The following year's productions were The Sea
The Sea (play)
The Sea is a play written by the English dramatist Edward Bond in 1973. It is a comedy set in a small village in rural East Anglia in the Edwardian period. The play draws on some of the themes of Shakespeare's The Tempest....
(Bond), starring David Haig
David Haig
David Haig is an Olivier Award-winning English actor and FIPA Award-winning writer. He is known for his versatility, having played dramatic, serio-comic and comedic roles, playing characters of varied social classes...
, Eileen Atkins
Eileen Atkins
Dame Eileen June Atkins, DBE is an English actress and occasional screenwriter.- Early life :Atkins was born in the Mothers' Hospital in Clapton, a Salvation Army women's hostel in East London...
and Russell Tovey
Russell Tovey
Russell George Tovey is an English actor with numerous television, film and stage credits. Tovey is best known for playing the role of werewolf George Sands in the BBC's supernatural drama Being Human which started in 2008...
; Marguerite
Marguerite (musical)
Marguerite is a musical with a book by Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg and Jonathan Kent, lyrics by Alain Boublil and Herbert Kretzmer, and music by Michel Legrand, with original French lyrics by Boublil. Based on the romantic novel La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils, the musical...
, a new musical starring Ruthie Henshall
Ruthie Henshall
Valentine Ruth Henshall , better known as Ruthie Henshall, is an English singer, dancer, and actress best known for her work in musical theatre. Henshall attended the Laine Theatre Arts school in Epsom, Surrey before making her first professional appearance on stage in 1986...
and Alexander Hanson
Alexander Hanson (actor)
Alexander Hanson is a British stage actor who has appeared in numerous plays and musicals in the West End, and recently on Broadway.-Personal life:Hanson is an alumnus of Guildhall School of Music and Drama...
; Girl with a Pearl Earring, a stage adaptation by David Joss Buckley of Tracy Chevalier
Tracy Chevalier
Tracy Chevalier is a bestselling historical novelist. She lives in London with her husband and son.Chevalier was raised in Washington, D.C and graduated from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Bethesda, Maryland. After receiving her B.A...
's novel; and Keith Allen in Treasure Island
Treasure Island
Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "pirates and buried gold". First published as a book on May 23, 1883, it was originally serialized in the children's magazine Young Folks between 1881–82 under the title Treasure Island; or, the...
.
In 2009 the theatre presented On the Waterfront
On the Waterfront
On the Waterfront is a 1954 American drama film about union violence and corruption among longshoremen. The film was directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger, Eva Marie Saint, Lee J. Cobb and Karl Malden. The soundtrack score was composed by Leonard...
; Ian McKellen
Ian McKellen
Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE is an English actor. He has received a Tony Award, two Academy Award nominations, and five Emmy Award nominations. His work has spanned genres from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction...
, Patrick Stewart
Patrick Stewart
Sir Patrick Hewes Stewart, OBE is an English film, television and stage actor, who has had a distinguished career in theatre and television for around half a century...
, Simon Callow
Simon Callow
Simon Phillip Hugh Callow, CBE is an English actor, writer and theatre director. He is also currently a judge on Popstar to Operastar.-Early years:...
and Ronald Pickup
Ronald Pickup
-Life and career:Pickup was born in Chester, England, the son of Daisy and Eric Pickup, who was a lecturer. Pickup was educated at The King's School, Chester, trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and became an Associate Member of RADA.His television work began with an episode...
starred in Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's...
; followed by Breakfast at Tiffany's, starring Anna Friel
Anna Friel
Anna Louise Friel is an English actress. She rose to fame in the UK as Beth Jordache on the Channel 4 soap Brookside.-Early life:...
, Joseph Cross, James Dreyfus
James Dreyfus
- Early life and career :Born in London, Dreyfus was educated at Harrow School and then trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. His parents divorced when he was very young. He is openly gay....
and Suzanne Bertish
Suzanne Bertish
Suzanne C. Bertish is an English actress.A former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Bertish has appeared in many productions with them, including their marathon eight-and-a-half hour version of Charles Dickens's The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, in which she played three roles...
. In 2010 Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's...
was staged again with McKellen, Roger Rees
Roger Rees
Roger Rees is a Welsh actor. He is best known to American audiences for playing the characters Robin Colcord on the American television sitcom show Cheers and Lord John Marbury on the American television drama The West Wing...
, Matthew Kelly
Matthew Kelly
Matthew Kelly is an English television presenter and Olivier-award winning actor. Having been trained as a theatre actor, he first came to public prominence as a television presenter of ITV light entertainment shows such as You Bet! and Stars in Their Eyes...
and Pickup; followed by a transfer of Sweet Charity
Sweet Charity
Sweet Charity is a musical with music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Dorothy Fields and book by Neil Simon. It was directed and choreographed for Broadway by Bob Fosse starring his wife and muse Gwen Verdon. It is based on Federico Fellini's screenplay for Nights of Cabiria...
from the Menier Chocolate Factory
Menier Chocolate Factory
The Menier Chocolate Factory is an award-winning 180 seat fringe studio theatre, restaurant and gallery. It is located in a former 1870s Menier Chocolate Company factory in Southwark Street, a major street in the London Borough of Southwark, central south London, England. The theatre stages plays...
. The next show was The Rivals
The Rivals
The Rivals, a play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, is a comedy of manners in five acts. It was first performed on 17 January 1775.- Production :...
starring Penelope Keith
Penelope Keith
Penelope Anne Constance Keith, CBE, DL is an English actress.Having started her television career in the 1950s, Penelope Keith became a household name in the United Kingdom in the 1970s when she played Margo Leadbetter in the sitcom The Good Life...
and Peter Bowles
Peter Bowles
-Early life:Bowles was born in London, England, the son of Sarah Jane and Herbert Reginald Bowles. His father was a chauffeur and butler at a stately home in Warwickshire; but, upon the outbreak of World War II, he was seconded to work as an engineer at Rolls-Royce and moved the family to Nottingham...
.
Trevor Nunn
Trevor Nunn
Sir Trevor Robert Nunn, CBE is an English theatre, film and television director. Nunn has been the Artistic Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He has directed musicals and dramas for the stage, as well as opera...
took over as Artistic Director in 2011. His productions include a revival of Flare Path
Flare Path (play)
-1942–43 Broadway production:Flare Path had a short run on Broadway at Henry Miller's Theatre from December 1942 to January 1943. Alec Guinness played Teddy and Nancy Kelly played Patricia. The play was Guinness's Broadway debut, and he was granted leave from the Royal Navy in order to take the role...
as part of the playwright Terence Rattigan
Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan CBE was one of England's most popular 20th-century dramatists. His plays are generally set in an upper-middle-class background...
's centenary year celebrations, from March to June, starring Sienna Miller
Sienna Miller
Sienna Rose Diana Miller is a British-American actress, model, and fashion designer, best known for her roles in Layer Cake, Alfie, Factory Girl, The Edge of Love and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. In 2007, the London Film Criticsnamed her British Actress of the Year for Interview...
, James Purefoy
James Purefoy
James Brian Mark Purefoy is an English actor best known for portraying Mark Antony in the HBO series Rome.-Early life and work:...
and Sheridan Smith
Sheridan Smith
Sheridan Smith is an English actress and singer who is best known for her contributions to the British sitcoms Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Gavin & Stacey and Benidorm. She has also become a recognised face in West End theatre, where she has appeared in Little Shop of Horrors,...
. From June to August, the theatre will present the Chichester Festival Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre, located in Chichester, England, was designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, and opened by its founder Leslie Evershed-Martin in 1962. Subsequently the smaller and more intimate Minerva Theatre was built nearby in 1989....
's revival of Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...
. From August to October, Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes is an English actor and film director. He has appeared in such films as The English Patient, In Bruges, The Constant Gardener, Strange Days, The Duchess and Schindler's List....
will play Prospero in a production of The Tempest
The Tempest
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
by William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
. In November, Robert Lindsay
Robert Lindsay (actor)
Robert Lindsay is an English actor who is best known for his television work, especially his roles of Wolfie Smith in Citizen Smith, Michael Murray in G.B.H., Captain Sir Edward Pellew in Hornblower and Ben Harper in My Family which has been on television screens since 2000.-Early life:Lindsay was...
and Joanna Lumley
Joanna Lumley
Joanna Lamond Lumley, OBE, FRGS is a British actress, voice-over artist, former-model and author, best known for her roles in British television series Absolutely Fabulous portraying Edina Monsoon's best friend, Patsy Stone, as well as parts in The New Avengers, Sapphire & Steel, and Sensitive...
will star in The Lion in Winter
The Lion in Winter
-Synopsis:Set during Christmas 1183 at Henry II of England's château in Chinon, Anjou, Angevin Empire, the play opens with the arrival of Henry's wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, whom he has had imprisoned since 1173...
, which will run until January 2012.
External links
- Theatre Royal Haymarket homepage
- bbc.co.uk Theatre shuts after ceiling fall (published 2004-05-17)
- New York Times obituary, of J. B. Buckstone, November 1, 1879, describing numerous plays that he produced at the Haymarket