Lyric Theatre

Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, West London, in King Street, opened as the Lyric Hall in 1888. It was reconstructed and reopened as the Lyric Opera House in 1890, rebuilt in 1895, its seating capacity being increased from 550 to 800, and further improved in 1899. The home of a resident stock company, it drew a large local audience to its melodramas and annual pantomime, but its fortunes declined and it housed mainly touring companies until in 1918 it was taken over by Nigel Playfair. He redecorated it, renamed it the Lyric Theatre, and made it prosperous and fashionable, drawing large audiences from the West End. The opening production was A. A. Milne's Make-Believe; in 1919 Drinkwater's chronicle play Abraham Lincoln, brought from the Birmingham Repertory Theatre for two weeks, began a run of 466 performances. A notable revival of Gay's The Beggar's Opera, with décor by Lovat Fraser, opened in 1920 and ran for 1,463 performances. Edith Evans was a fine Millamant in Congreve's The Way of the World (1924) and returned as Mrs Sullen in Farquhar's The Beaux' Stratagem (1927). In between Ellen Terry made her last appearance on the stage, in De la Mare's Crossings, and there was a notable revival of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard with Gielgud as Trofimov (both 1925). A number of new light operas were staged, including A. P. Herbert's Riverside Nights, and in 1930 Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest was seen in a black-and-white décor. Playfair left in 1933, after which the theatre was used only intermittently, but in 1946 it achieved success with a production by Peter Brook of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov starring Alec Guinness. A number of new plays and revivals were then staged, several of which were transferred to the West End, among them Cocteau's The Eagle has Two Heads (also 1946), Vanbrugh's The Relapse (1947), Arthur Miller's All My Sons, and Sartre's Crime passionel (both 1948). Gielgud ran a successful repertory season, 1952–3, directing Paul Scofield in Richard II and appearing himself. Later productions were Anouilh's The Lark (1955) with Dorothy Tutin as Joan of Arc; the revue Share My Lettuce (1957), in which Maggie Smith made her London début; Pinter's first full-length play The Birthday Party (1958); and in 1959 Büchner's Danton's Death and Ibsen's Brand.

A period of stagnation then set in and the theatre finally closed in 1966. It was demolished in 1972, but plaster castings of the original Victorian interior were taken. A new theatre 20 yards away, seating 540, with the original interior, opened in 1979 with Shaw's You Never Can Tell. Its many West End transfers included Michael Frayn's Make and Break (1980) and Noises Off (1982) and García Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba (1986). The small studio theatre seating 130 houses small touring companies and stages rarely performed work.