Queen's Theatre

Queen's Theatre, London. 1. In Long Acre. This building, erected in 1849, was known originally as St Martin's Hall, and was used on a number of occasions by Charles Dickens reading from his own works. In 1867 it was converted into the second largest theatre in London, and in 1868 Henry Irving and Ellen Terry appeared together for the first time in Katharine and Petruchio, Garrick's version of The Taming of the Shrew. When Ellen Terry returned to the stage after some years in retirement she was seen at the Queen's as Philippa in Reade's The Wandering Heir (1873). In spite of changing its name to the National Theatre in 1877 the theatre had little further success and finally closed in 1879.2. In Shaftesbury Avenue. It is the sister theatre of the present Globe Theatre, which it adjoins, the auditoriums and stages of the two playhouses being separated only by a party wall. With a seating capacity of 1,160 in three tiers it opened in 1907, and had its first success a year later with a musical The Belle of Brittany. Fashionable tango-teas were held in 1913, and in 1914 the theatre did well with Glass and Klein's Potash and Perlmutter. Among later productions were Fagan's And So to Bed (1926) with Yvonne Arnaud and the Malvern Festival production of Shaw's The Apple Cart (1929) with Edith Evans. In the following year John Gielgud repeated his Old Vic triumph as Hamlet, and other successful productions were Besier's The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1930), Knoblock's Evensong (1932), and Robert Morley's Short Story (1935). In 1937–8 Gielgud returned with a season of four plays. He was also in Dodie Smith's Dear Octopus (1938), which was still running when the theatres closed on the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. The Queen's had reopened and was occupied by Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca when on 24 Sept. 1940 it was badly damaged by bombs. It did not reopen until 1959, after the complete restoration of the front-of-house, the first production being Gielgud's solo recital The Ages of Man. Later came The Aspern Papers, adapted from Henry James's novel, Bolt's The Tiger and the Horse (1960), both with Michael Redgrave, and Anthony Newley in his own musical Stop the World—I Want to Get Off (1961). In 1964 there was a revival of Chekhov's The Seagull with Peggy Ashcroft and Vanessa Redgrave. Noël Coward made his last appearance on the stage in his Suite in Three Keys (1966), and Peter Ustinov's Halfway up the Tree (1967) had a long run. Alan Bennett's Getting On was seen in 1971, and Maggie Smith in 1972 in a revival of Coward's Private Lives. The National Theatre production of De Filippo's Saturday, Sunday, Monday moved there in 1974, and in 1975 Alan Bates starred in Simon Gray's Otherwise Engaged. In 1977 Alan Ayckbourn's Just between Ourselves had a comparatively short run, but Alan Bennett's The Old Country, starring Alec Guinness, was more successful. Tom Courtenay gave a brilliant performance in 1980 in the title-role of Ronald Harwood's The Dresser, and in the following year another play by Simon Gray, Quartermaine's Terms, received high praise. Later productions were Julian Mitchell's Another Country (1982), The Seagull, again with Vanessa Redgrave, in 1985, the musical Wonderful Town in 1986, and Alan Bennett's double bill Single Spies (1989). (See also DORSET GARDEN THEATRE, HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE, and SCALA THEATRE.)