Exeter

Exeter, Devon. The first theatre was erected in about 1735 by a company from Bath. Closed by the Theatres Act of 1737, it became a Methodist chapel but reverted later to its original use as part of the Bath circuit. It was managed for a time in the 1760s by Thomas Jefferson, great-grandfather of Joseph Jefferson. In 1787 a new theatre was built, based on the plans of Sadler's Wells, the London stars who appeared there including Stephen Kemble, Mrs Siddons, Master Betty, and Edmund Kean. It was destroyed by fire in 1820, the only part to survive being the colonnade which was incorporated into a new building. This opened in 1821 with The Merchant of Venice and was visited by Mme Vestris, Charles and Fanny Kemble, Macready, and Phelps. Hearts of Oak (1880) by Henry Arthur Jones was the first play by a local man. The theatre, which although it had no royal patent was known locally as the Theatre Royal from about 1828, burned down in 1885. A new Theatre Royal, opened in 1886, was also destroyed in 1887 in one of the worst conflagrations in the history of the English theatre, 186 lives being lost. The new theatre, opened in 1889, survived the financial vicissitudes of the 1920s and 1930s and escaped damage by bombing during the Second World War, but although after the war it became well known for its long-running Christmas pantomimes, it closed and was demolished in 1962. Exeter was then without a theatre until the opening in 1967 of the Northcott Theatre.