Royalty Theatre
Encyclopedia
The Royalty Theatre was a small London
theatre situated at 73 Dean Street
, Soho
and opened on 25 May 1840 as Miss Kelly's Theatre and Dramatic School and finally closed to the public in 1938. The architect was Samuel Beazley
, a resident in Soho Square, who also designed St James's Theatre
, among others. An earlier theatre also named the Royalty existed in Wells Street, Wellclose Square, London from 1787 until the early part of the nineteenth century.
described the theatre as 'most elegantly fitted up and appointed, and painted in a light tasteful manner.’ The theatre was designed as a bijou for a fashionable audience, and a box was taken by Queen Adelaide
.
On the opening night, three pieces were presented, Summer and Winter, by Morris Barnett; a melodrama, The Sergeant's Wife; and a farce, The Midnight Hour. The opening was unsuccessful, and within a week the theatre was closed. A contributory factor was probably the high admission charges of five or seven shillings. Kelly reopened the theatre, at reduced prices, on 22 February 1841, for a short season of her own monologues, but in the following year illness ended her active use of the theatre.
In 1850 the theatre was reopened as the (Royal) Soho Theatre, after redecoration by W. W. Deane and S. J. Nicholl, changing its name to the New English Opera House from 5 November 1850, and in the following year an entrance portico was built. Various types of productions played at the theatre, including English 'Grand Opera
'. Performances were mostly by amateurs, hiring the theatre at standard rates. At other times ,the theatre, as 'Theatre Français', attracted patrons chiefly among the foreigners in Soho.
In 1861, the direction of the theatre was assumed by Albina di Rhona, 'the young Servian artist', a dancer and comic actress. She renamed it the New Royalty Theatre, and had it altered and redecorated by 'M. Bulot, of Paris, Decorator in Ordinary to his Imperial Majesty, Louis Napoleon', with 'cut-glass lustres, painted panels, blue satin draperies and gold mouldings'. Despite a varied opening programme, in which Miss di Rhona danced, the leader of the Boston Brass Band from America executed a bugle solo, and a performance was given by a fourteen year old actress named Ellen Terry
(later the leading Shakespearean actress of her time), the re-opening was not successful. The theatre was managed, from 1866 to 1870, by Martha Cranmer Oliver
, who featured mostly burlesques, including F. C. Burnand's burlesque of Black-eyed Susan, which ran for nearly 500 nights, and a burlesque by W. S. Gilbert
, The Merry Zingara
.
The theatre was managed by Henrietta Hodson
during the early 1870s. She also produced mostly burlesques and comedies, including Gilbert's The Realm of Joy
and Ought We to Visit her? In 1872, it became known as the Royalty Theatre and retained this name (although it was occasionally known as the New Royalty Theatre). On 25 March 1875 the theatre, under the direction of Madame Selina Dolaro
, enjoyed an historic success with Trial by Jury
, the first Gilbert and Sullivan
opera to be staged by Richard D'Oyly Carte
. It premiered together with Jacques Offenbach
's La Périchole
and another one-act farce, Cryptoconchoidsyphonostomata
. The favourable reception of Trial led Carte to create his own company elsewhere, so it brought no continuing prosperity to the Royalty. In January 1876 at the theatre, Pauline Rita
appeared under Carte's management as Gustave Muller in The Duke's Daughter.
, who later seems to have acquired the head lease. Producer Richard D'Oyly Carte
joined forces with Santley in January 1877 to present Lischen and Fritzen, Jacques Offenbach
’s Orpheus in the Underworld, and Happy Hampstead by Carte (under the pseudonym Mark Lynne) and his secretary, Frank Desprez
. In that year the First Chief Officer of the London Fire Brigade
strongly recommended to the Metropolitan Board of Works the immediate closure of the theatre. Santley, however, had it reconstructed to designs of architect Thomas Verity, whose plans, providing improved means of egress were approved in 1882. Verity had also designed the Comedy and the Criterion
theatres and the Pavilion at Lord’s.
Many of the productions in these years were opera-bouffes adapted from the French. M. L. Mayer, formerly of the Gaiety Theatre
, staged twice-yearly seasons of plays in French. The Coquelins and other luminaries of the Comédie Française appeared here in the 1880s, when the Royalty was 'the recognized home of the Parisian drama.' A threat of closure for safety reasons was averted by a further reconstruction of the theatre in 1883 to provide additional exits. This was designed by Thomas Verity
, and Santley was praised for the theatre's renovations.. The opening of Shaftesbury Avenue
and of new theatres in that neighbourhood, including the Lyric Theatre
and the Apollo Theatre
, drew audiences away from the little Royalty Theatre in Dean Street, and in the 1890s the Royalty was not prospering. When the theatre finally had a great success, with Brandon Thomas
’s play, Charley's Aunt
, its popularity led to its transference after only a month to the larger Globe Theatre
. Ibsen's Ghosts
premièred, to predictable outrage, at the theatre, in a single private London performance on 13 March 1891. The Lord Chamberlain's Office
censorship was avoided by the formation of a subscription-only Independent Theatre Society
, which included Thomas Hardy
and Henry James
among its members. Again, for the Society, George Bernard Shaw
premièred Widower's Houses, his first play, here the following year.
In 1895-96 the Royalty's manager was Arthur Bourchier
, and the theatre underwent another renovation, by architect Walter Emden
. He produced, among other plays, The Chili Widow, an adaptation of his own that ran for over 300 nights. In 1899, the first production of the Incorporated Stage Society took place with the first performance of Shaw's You Never Can Tell. In 1900-01 Mrs. Patrick Campbell hired the theatre and staged a succession of contemporary plays in which she starred, and in 1903-04 Hans Andresen and Max Behrend presented a successful season of German theatre. Also in 1904, the newly founded Irish National Theatre Society gave plays by W. B. Yeats and, in 1905, it presented an early performance of Synge
's first play, The Shadow of the Glen. In addition, Philip Carr's Mermaid Society produced Elizabethan and Jacobean plays.
and Edward Knoblauch
(later Knoblock), which had over 600 performances. The Man who Stayed at Home was also a hit in 1914, playing for 584 performances. Henry Daniell
starred as Bobby Gilmour in The Man from Toronto at the theatre in May 1918.
A post-war success was the concert-party entertainment, The Co-Optimists, first staged in 1921. The year 1924 saw the first West End
production at the theatre of Noel Coward
's The Vortex. Ibsen's Pillars of Society played in 1926. The last big success for the Royalty was in 1932 with While Parents Sleep. By 1936 the danger of fire from celluloid stores and other adjacent properties was thought to override the consideration, strongly pressed on the Lord Chamberlain
by the licensee, that the theatre had been on the site before the development of inflammatory trades nearby. The last performance was given at a matinee on 25 November 1938, by the Southern Cross Players.
Although several schemes were considered for its rebuilding, the theatre soon became derelict and was damaged in the World War II
Blitz
. The Royalty was demolished in 1953 and a block of offices, Royalty House, was erected on the site.
A modern Royalty Theatre was opened in the basement of an office block at Portugal Street near Aldwych
in 1960. This was bought by the London School of Economics and renamed the Peacock Theatre
in 1996. It is a lecture hall by day and a venue for the Sadler's Wells Theatre
company by night.
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
theatre situated at 73 Dean Street
Dean Street
Dean Street is a street in Soho, London, England, running between Oxford Street to the north and Shaftesbury Avenue to the south.-Historical figures:The street has a rich history. In 1764 a young Mozart gave a recital at 21 Dean Street...
, Soho
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...
and opened on 25 May 1840 as Miss Kelly's Theatre and Dramatic School and finally closed to the public in 1938. The architect was Samuel Beazley
Samuel Beazley
Samuel Beazley was an English architect, novelist and playwright. He became the leading theatre architect of his time and the first notable English expert in that field....
, a resident in Soho Square, who also designed St James's Theatre
St James's Theatre
The St James's Theatre was a 1,200-seat theatre located in King Street, at Duke Street, St James's, London. The elaborate theatre was designed with a neo-classical exterior and a Louis XIV style interior by Samuel Beazley and built by the partnership of Peto & Grissell for the tenor and theatre...
, among others. An earlier theatre also named the Royalty existed in Wells Street, Wellclose Square, London from 1787 until the early part of the nineteenth century.
Origins
The theatre originated with an attempt by the actress, Frances Maria Kelly (1790-1882), to establish a dramatic academy, and thereafter it had a long tradition of actress-management. 'The theatre was small, obscurely sited, perilously combustible and rarely prosperous for long, partly by reason of its consequent use for occasional or independent ventures, but it housed some productions of note'. However, there was a relatively spacious stage, and Beazley's work in the auditorium was thought pretty. The TimesThe Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
described the theatre as 'most elegantly fitted up and appointed, and painted in a light tasteful manner.’ The theatre was designed as a bijou for a fashionable audience, and a box was taken by Queen Adelaide
Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen
Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen was the queen consort of the United Kingdom and of Hanover as spouse of William IV of the United Kingdom. Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia, is named after her.-Early life:Adelaide was born on 13 August 1792 at Meiningen, Thuringia, Germany...
.
On the opening night, three pieces were presented, Summer and Winter, by Morris Barnett; a melodrama, The Sergeant's Wife; and a farce, The Midnight Hour. The opening was unsuccessful, and within a week the theatre was closed. A contributory factor was probably the high admission charges of five or seven shillings. Kelly reopened the theatre, at reduced prices, on 22 February 1841, for a short season of her own monologues, but in the following year illness ended her active use of the theatre.
Grand Opera
Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterised by large-scale casts and orchestras, and lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events...
'. Performances were mostly by amateurs, hiring the theatre at standard rates. At other times ,the theatre, as 'Theatre Français', attracted patrons chiefly among the foreigners in Soho.
In 1861, the direction of the theatre was assumed by Albina di Rhona, 'the young Servian artist', a dancer and comic actress. She renamed it the New Royalty Theatre, and had it altered and redecorated by 'M. Bulot, of Paris, Decorator in Ordinary to his Imperial Majesty, Louis Napoleon', with 'cut-glass lustres, painted panels, blue satin draperies and gold mouldings'. Despite a varied opening programme, in which Miss di Rhona danced, the leader of the Boston Brass Band from America executed a bugle solo, and a performance was given by a fourteen year old actress named Ellen Terry
Ellen Terry
Dame Ellen Terry, GBE was an English stage actress who became the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain. Among the members of her famous family is her great nephew, John Gielgud....
(later the leading Shakespearean actress of her time), the re-opening was not successful. The theatre was managed, from 1866 to 1870, by Martha Cranmer Oliver
Martha Cranmer Oliver
Martha Cranmer Oliver , also known as Pattie Oliver or M. Oliver, was an English actress and theatre manager....
, who featured mostly burlesques, including F. C. Burnand's burlesque of Black-eyed Susan, which ran for nearly 500 nights, and a burlesque by 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...
, The Merry Zingara
The Merry Zingara
The Merry Zingara; Or, The Tipsy Gipsy & The Pipsy Wipsy was the third of W. S. Gilbert's five burlesques of opera. Described by the author as "A Whimsical Parody on The Bohemian Girl", by Michael Balfe, it was produced at the Royalty Theatre, London, on 21 March 1868.As in his four other operatic...
.
The theatre was managed by Henrietta Hodson
Henrietta Hodson
Henrietta Hodson was an English actress and theatre manager best known for her portrayal of comedy roles in the Victorian era. She had a long affair with the journalist-turned-politician Henry Labouchère, later marrying him....
during the early 1870s. She also produced mostly burlesques and comedies, including Gilbert's The Realm of Joy
The Realm of Joy
The Realm of Joy is a one-act farce by W. S. Gilbert, writing under the pseudonym "F. Latour Tomline". It opened at the Royalty Theatre on 18 October 1873, running for about 113 performances, until 27 February 1874....
and Ought We to Visit her? In 1872, it became known as the Royalty Theatre and retained this name (although it was occasionally known as the New Royalty Theatre). On 25 March 1875 the theatre, under the direction of Madame Selina Dolaro
Selina Dolaro
Selina Dolaro was an English singer, actress, theatre manager and writer. During a career in operetta and other forms of musical theatre, she managed several of her own opera companies and raised four children as a single mother...
, enjoyed an historic success with Trial by Jury
Trial by Jury
Trial by Jury is a comic opera in one act, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was first produced on 25 March 1875, at London's Royalty Theatre, where it initially ran for 131 performances and was considered a hit, receiving critical praise and outrunning its...
, the first Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
opera to be staged by Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte was an English talent agent, theatrical impresario, composer and hotelier during the latter half of the Victorian era...
. It premiered together with Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
's La Périchole
La Périchole
La Périchole is an opéra bouffe in three acts by Jacques Offenbach. Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy wrote the French-language libretto based on the 1829 one act play Le carrosse du Saint-Sacrement by Prosper Mérimée, which was revived on 13 March 1850 at the Théâtre-Français...
and another one-act farce, Cryptoconchoidsyphonostomata
Cryptoconchoidsyphonostomata
Cryptoconchoidsyphonostomata, or While it's to be Had was a one-act play styled a "successful romantic Extravaganza", written by R. H. Edgar and Charles Collette, an actor who also starred in the leading role of Plantagenet Smith and wrote the words and music of the play's hit song...
. The favourable reception of Trial led Carte to create his own company elsewhere, so it brought no continuing prosperity to the Royalty. In January 1876 at the theatre, Pauline Rita
Pauline Rita
Pauline Rita was an English soprano and actress. During her early career, she was best known known for her performances in operettas and comic operas at the Opera Comique and was associated with impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte...
appeared under Carte's management as Gustave Muller in The Duke's Daughter.
The Santley years
In 1877 began the association of the theatre, lasting some thirty years, with Kate SantleyKate Santley
Kate Santley was an American-born English actress, singer, comedienne, and theatre manager. Her brother was the English baritone, Sir Charles Santley, famous in Wagner's Flying Dutchman among other roles.-Musical theatre career:...
, who later seems to have acquired the head lease. Producer Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte was an English talent agent, theatrical impresario, composer and hotelier during the latter half of the Victorian era...
joined forces with Santley in January 1877 to present Lischen and Fritzen, Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
’s Orpheus in the Underworld, and Happy Hampstead by Carte (under the pseudonym Mark Lynne) and his secretary, Frank Desprez
Frank Desprez
Frank Desprez was an English playwright, essayist, and poet. He wrote more than twenty pieces for the theatre, as well as numerous shorter works, including his famous poem, Lasca.-Life and career:...
. In that year the First Chief Officer of the London Fire Brigade
London Fire Brigade
The London Fire Brigade is the statutory fire and rescue service for London.Founded in 1865, it is the largest of the fire services in the United Kingdom and the fourth-largest in the world with nearly 7,000 staff, including 5,800 operational firefighters based in 112 fire...
strongly recommended to the Metropolitan Board of Works the immediate closure of the theatre. Santley, however, had it reconstructed to designs of architect Thomas Verity, whose plans, providing improved means of egress were approved in 1882. Verity had also designed the Comedy and the Criterion
Criterion Theatre
The Criterion Theatre is a West End theatre situated on Piccadilly Circus in the City of Westminster, and is a Grade II* listed building. It has an official capacity of 588.-Building the theatre:...
theatres and the Pavilion at Lord’s.
Gaiety Theatre, London
The Gaiety Theatre, London was a West End theatre in London, located on Aldwych at the eastern end of the Strand. The theatre was established as the Strand Musick Hall , in 1864 on the former site of the Lyceum Theatre. It was rebuilt several times, but closed from the beginning of World War II...
, staged twice-yearly seasons of plays in French. The Coquelins and other luminaries of the Comédie Française appeared here in the 1880s, when the Royalty was 'the recognized home of the Parisian drama.' A threat of closure for safety reasons was averted by a further reconstruction of the theatre in 1883 to provide additional exits. This was designed by Thomas Verity
Thomas Verity
Thomas Verity was an English theatre architect during the theatre building boom of 1885–1915.Verity began his career articled in the architecture department of the War Office, assisting in the erection of the South Kensington Museum...
, and Santley was praised for the theatre's renovations.. The opening of Shaftesbury Avenue
Shaftesbury Avenue
Shaftesbury Avenue is a major street in central London, England, named after Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, that runs in a north-easterly direction from Piccadilly Circus to New Oxford Street, crossing Charing Cross Road at Cambridge Circus....
and of new theatres in that neighbourhood, including the Lyric Theatre
Lyric Theatre (London)
The Lyric Theatre is a West End theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster.Designed by architect C. J. Phipps, it was built by producer Henry Leslie with profits from the Alfred Cellier and B. C. Stephenson hit, Dorothy, which he transferred from the Prince of Wales Theatre to open...
and the Apollo Theatre
Apollo Theatre
The Apollo Theatre is a Grade II listed West End theatre, on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster. Designed by architect Lewin Sharp for owner Henry Lowenfield, and the fourth legitimate theatre to be constructed on the street, its doors opened on 21 February 1901 with the American...
, drew audiences away from the little Royalty Theatre in Dean Street, and in the 1890s the Royalty was not prospering. When the theatre finally had a great success, with Brandon Thomas
Brandon Thomas
Walter Brandon Thomas was an English actor, playwright and song writer, best known as the author of the farce Charley's Aunt....
’s play, Charley's Aunt
Charley's Aunt
Charley's Aunt is a farce in three acts written by Brandon Thomas. It broke all historic records for plays of any kind, with an original London run of 1,466 performances....
, its popularity led to its transference after only a month to the larger Globe Theatre
Globe Theatre (Newcastle Street)
The Globe was a Victorian theatre built in 1868 and demolished in 1902. It was the third of five London theatres to bear the name. It was also known at various times as the Royal Globe Theatre or Globe Theatre Royal. Its repertoire consisted mainly of comedies and musical shows...
. Ibsen's Ghosts
Ghosts (play)
Ghosts is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was written in 1881 and first staged in 1882.Like many of Ibsen's better-known plays, Ghosts is a scathing commentary on 19th century morality....
premièred, to predictable outrage, at the theatre, in a single private London performance on 13 March 1891. The Lord Chamberlain's Office
Lord Chamberlain's Office
The Lord Chamberlain's Office is a department within the British Royal Household. It is presently concerned with matters such as protocol, state visits, investitures, garden parties, the State Opening of Parliament, royal weddings and funerals. For example, in April 2005 it organised the wedding of...
censorship was avoided by the formation of a subscription-only Independent Theatre Society
Independent Theatre Society
The Independent Theatre Society was a by-subscription-only organisation in London from 1891 to 1897, founded by Dutch drama critic Jacob Grein to give "special performances of plays which have a literary and artistic rather than a commercial value." The society was inspired by its continental...
, which included Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
and 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....
among its members. Again, for the Society, 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...
premièred Widower's Houses, his first play, here the following year.
In 1895-96 the Royalty's manager was Arthur Bourchier
Arthur Bourchier
Arthur Bourchier was an English actor and theatre manager. He married and later divorced the actress Violet Vanbrugh....
, and the theatre underwent another renovation, by architect Walter Emden
Walter Emden
Walter Lawrence Emden was one of the leading English theatre and music hall architects in the building boom of 1885 to 1915.-Biography:...
. He produced, among other plays, The Chili Widow, an adaptation of his own that ran for over 300 nights. In 1899, the first production of the Incorporated Stage Society took place with the first performance of Shaw's You Never Can Tell. In 1900-01 Mrs. Patrick Campbell hired the theatre and staged a succession of contemporary plays in which she starred, and in 1903-04 Hans Andresen and Max Behrend presented a successful season of German theatre. Also in 1904, the newly founded Irish National Theatre Society gave plays by W. B. Yeats and, in 1905, it presented an early performance of Synge
John Millington Synge
Edmund John Millington Synge was an Irish playwright, poet, prose writer, and collector of folklore. He was a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival and was one of the cofounders of the Abbey Theatre...
's first play, The Shadow of the Glen. In addition, Philip Carr's Mermaid Society produced Elizabethan and Jacobean plays.
Later years
After further rebuilding work and redecoration in French Regency style, which increased the capacity of the theatre to 657 seats, the Royalty reopened on 4 January 1906 with a season of Theatre Français directed by Gaston Mayer. In 1911, J. E. Vedrenne and Dennis Eadie acquired the theatre, and in 1912, they staged Milestones, by Arnold BennettArnold Bennett
- Early life :Bennett was born in a modest house in Hanley in the Potteries district of Staffordshire. Hanley is one of a conurbation of six towns which joined together at the beginning of the twentieth century as Stoke-on-Trent. Enoch Bennett, his father, qualified as a solicitor in 1876, and the...
and Edward Knoblauch
Edward Knoblock
Edward Knoblock was an American-born British playwright and novelist most remembered for the often revived 1911 play, Kismet-Biography:...
(later Knoblock), which had over 600 performances. The Man who Stayed at Home was also a hit in 1914, playing for 584 performances. 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....
starred as Bobby Gilmour in The Man from Toronto at the theatre in May 1918.
A post-war success was the concert-party entertainment, The Co-Optimists, first staged in 1921. The year 1924 saw the first West End
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...
production at the theatre of Noel 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 The Vortex. Ibsen's Pillars of Society played in 1926. The last big success for the Royalty was in 1932 with While Parents Sleep. By 1936 the danger of fire from celluloid stores and other adjacent properties was thought to override the consideration, strongly pressed on the Lord Chamberlain
Lord Chamberlain
The Lord Chamberlain or Lord Chamberlain of the Household is one of the chief officers of the Royal Household in the United Kingdom and is to be distinguished from the Lord Great Chamberlain, one of the Great Officers of State....
by the licensee, that the theatre had been on the site before the development of inflammatory trades nearby. The last performance was given at a matinee on 25 November 1938, by the Southern Cross Players.
Although several schemes were considered for its rebuilding, the theatre soon became derelict and was damaged in the 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...
Blitz
The Blitz
The Blitz was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed...
. The Royalty was demolished in 1953 and a block of offices, Royalty House, was erected on the site.
A modern Royalty Theatre was opened in the basement of an office block at Portugal Street near Aldwych
Aldwych
Aldwych is a place and road in the City of Westminster in London, England.-Description:Aldwych, the road, is a crescent, connected to the Strand at both ends. At its centre, it meets the Kingsway...
in 1960. This was bought by the London School of Economics and renamed the Peacock Theatre
Peacock Theatre
The Peacock Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster, located in Portugal Street, near Aldwych. The 999-seat house is owned by, and comprises part of the London School of Economics and Political Science campus, who utilise the theatre for lectures, public talks, conferences,...
in 1996. It is a lecture hall by day and a venue for the Sadler's Wells Theatre
Sadler's Wells Theatre
Sadler's Wells Theatre is a performing arts venue located in Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell in the London Borough of Islington. The present day theatre is the sixth on the site since 1683. It consists of two performance spaces: a 1,500 seat main auditorium and the Lilian Baylis Studio, with extensive...
company by night.
External links
- History of the Royalty Theatre at arthurlloyd.co.uk
- Information about Santley's management of the Royalty Theatre
- Playbills (text) at the University of KentUniversity of KentThe University of Kent, previously the University of Kent at Canterbury, is a public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom...
special collections.