Royalty Theatre

Royalty Theatre, London.

1. In Well Street, Wellclose Square. In 1787 John Palmer and John Bannister from Drury Lane opened a theatre for which they had obtained a licence from the Governor of the Tower of London, in whose precincts the building stood, and the magistrates of the Tower Hamlets. Under the provisions of the Licensing Act of 1737 this made it technically an ‘unlicensed’ theatre, and when it opened with As You Like It and Garrick's Miss in Her Teens the Patent Theatres objected; Palmer was arrested and the theatre closed. Later it reopened with burlesque and pantomime only but led a precarious existence. In 1813 another Palmer took it over and changed its name to the East London, but it was still unsuccessful and in 1826 it was burned down. Rebuilt as the Royal Brunswick, it became the shortest-lived playhouse in London's theatre history. Opening on 25 Feb. 1828, it collapsed three days later owing to the weight of the roof. A rehearsal of Scott's Guy Mannering was in progress at the time; 15 people were killed and 20 injured.

2. In Dean Street, Soho. This small theatre was built for Fanny Kelly, and was used by her in conjunction with a school of acting. It opened in 1840, but the newly installed stage machinery, worked by a horse, proved so noisy that it had to be removed. The theatre was not a success and closed in 1849, reopening in 1850 as the Royal Soho. After a further period as the New English Opera House it again became a school of acting, and in 1861 reopened as the New Royalty with a revival of a melodrama in which the 13-year-old Ellen Terry appeared. In 1875 a one-act musical farce Trial by Jury, put on as a stop-gap, brought Gilbert and Sullivan together for the first time. In 1882 the theatre was partially reconstructed, reopening in 1883. The Independent Theatre Society produced Ibsen's Ghosts there in 1891, and Bernard Shaw's first play, Widowers' Houses, in 1892. At the end of that year Brandon Thomas's farce Charley's Aunt opened there before moving to the Globe Theatre. Ibsen's A Doll's House (1893) and The Wild Duck (1894) maintained the theatre's reputation as a home of modern drama, and between these two productions William Poel mounted his seminal ‘Elizabethan’ production of Measure for Measure. The theatre was reconstructed again in 1895, 1906, and 1911, and many well-known managements came and went. In 1900 Mrs Patrick Campbell revived Sudermann's Magda and Maeterlinck's Pelléas and Mélisande. She also gave the first English production of Bjørnson's Beyond Human Power (1901). In 1912 came Galsworthy's The Pigeon and Bennett and Knoblock's Milestones, in 1919 the first performance of Maugham's Caesar's Wife, with Fay Compton, and two years later The Co-Optimists concert-party. In 1924 Noël Coward's The Vortex was transferred there, and in 1925 Sean O'Casey had his first London success with Juno and the Paycock. John Drinkwater's Bird in Hand (1928) had a long run, and two comedies, While Parents Sleep (1932) by Anthony Kimmins and Bridie's Storm in a Teacup (1936), opened here. In 1937 Priestley's I Have Been Here Before gave the theatre its last success before it closed in 1938. It was badly damaged by bombing during the Second World War, and demolished in 1955.

3. In Portugal Street, Kingsway. Built on the site of the Stoll Theatre, this theatre has a two-tier auditorium holding 997. It opened in 1960 with Dürrenmatt's The Visit starring the Lunts. After William Gibson's The Miracle Worker in 1961 it became a cinema, but reopened as a live theatre in 1970, the erotic revue Oh! Calcutta! being transferred there. It occupied the theatre until 1974 before moving. In 1977 the Royalty housed the successful musical Bubbling Brown Sugar, but it later had little success and in 1981 became a television studio, though since changing hands a few years later it has been used for theatre, concerts, and trade shows as well as television.