Palace Theatre

Palace Theatre, London, in Cambridge Circus, Shaftesbury Avenue. This theatre, with its fourtier auditorium seating 1,697 (reduced in 1908 to 1,462), opened in 1891 as the Royal English Opera House. A year later, as the Palace Theatre of Varieties, it became a successful music-hall under Charles Morton. It took its present name in 1911, in which year the first Royal Command Variety Show was seen there, as was Grock on his first visit to London. It continued to present variety bills and revues, the first being The Passing Show (1914). In 1925 the musical No, No, Nanette! began its long run, followed by a number of other successful musicals, including The Girl Friend (1927) and Frederica (1930). After some straight plays in the 1930s the theatre reverted to revue with a series of Cochran shows, and after appearing in Under Your Hat (1938) Cicely Courtneidge and Jack Hulbert remained in the theatre for Full Swing (1942) and Something in the Air (1943). Among later successes were Gay Rosalinda (1945) and Song of Norway (1946), and in 1949 the long run of Novello's King's Rhapsody began. During the 1950s the Palace was used by a number of foreign companies brought to London on the initiative of Peter Daubeny; Laurence Olivier was also seen there in John Osborne's The Entertainer (1957). In 1960 Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical Flower Drum Song opened, to be followed in 1961 by their The Sound of Music, which ran for six years. In 1968 Judi Dench made a great success in Cabaret, and in 1970 Danny La Rue began a long season in drag. He was followed by the rock musical Jesus Christ Superstar, which opened in 1972 and ran for eight years. There were revivals of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! in 1980 and of Rodgers and Hart's On Your Toes in 1984. The musical Les Misérables began a long run in 1986.