Strand Theatre

Strand Theatre, London. I.
I. In the Strand. It opened in 1832 as Rayner's New Strand Subscription Theatre. The last battles between the unlicensed houses and the Patent Theatres were being waged, and the opening attraction was a burlesque on the current situation entitled Professionals Puzzled; or, Struggles at Starting. The enterprise was not a success and the theatre closed. It reopened in 1833, closed again, but in 1836 Douglas Jerrold reopened it, adding a gallery to the auditorium. He enjoyed some success with dramatized versions of novels by Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers being retitled Sam Weller. After a succession of managers William Farren took over in 1848, staging an adaptation of Goldsmith's novel The Vicar of Wakefield. After he left the theatre was renamed Punch's Playhouse and sank into obscurity, but reopened in 1858 as the Strand with a season of burlesques by H. J. Byron. The unexpected success of these productions enabled the theatre to be largely reconstructed in 1865. New safety regulations, however, forced it to close in 1882, and it was again largely rebuilt. In 1884 a revival of H. J. Byron's Our Boys did well, and it was followed by other successful revivals. In 1901 a musical play The Chinese Honeymoon began a long run before the theatre finally closed in 1905, the site now being occupied by the Aldwych underground station.

2. In the Aldwych. This theatre was built for the American impresarios Sam and Lee Shubert, its exterior being identical to that of the Aldwych Theatre at the other end of the block. It has a four-tier auditorium seating 1,084 and opened in 1905 as the Waldorf. After the destruction of his own theatre in 1905 Cyril Maude made it his headquarters, remaining until 1907, when Julia Marlowe and E. H. Sothern appeared in a series of plays which included Kester's When Knighthood was in Flower. In 1909 the name of the theatre was changed to the Strand and in 1911 it became the Whitney after its American manager reverting to the Strand in 1913 when he left, and scoring a success at last with Matheson Lang in Mr Wu by Harry Vernon and Harold Owen. In 1915 the building, which was then occupied by Fred Terry and Julia Neilson, was slightly damaged during a Zeppelin raid. Arthur Bourchier took over in 1919 and successfully produced A. E. W. Mason's At the Villa Rose (1920), Ian Hay's A Safety Match (1921), and a dramatization of R. L. Stevenson's Treasure Island (1922). Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie had its London première there in 1923, and George Abbott and Philip Dunning's Broadway (1926) was another successful American play. Later hits included a farce by Austin Melford, It's a Boy (1930), 1066 and All That (1935), Vernon Sylvaine's Aren't Men Beasts! (1936), and Ben Travers's Banana Ridge (1938). In 1940, at the height of the blitz, Donald Wolfit gave midday productions of Shakespeare. During one of them the building was badly blasted, but it was soon repaired, and did outstandingly well with Kesselring's Arsenic and Old Lace (1942). Post-war successes included Vernon Sylvaine's farce Will Any Gentleman? (1950); Sailor, Beware! (1955), a farce by Philip King and Falkland Cary; the revue For Adults Only (1958); and two plays by Ronald Millar based on novels by C. P. Snow, The Affair (1961) and The New Men (1962). Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1963) was followed by the thriller Wait until Dark (1966) by Frederick Knott. In 1968 Not Now, Darling by Ray Cooney and John Chapman began a long run. The comedy No Sex Please—We're British by Anthony Marriott and Alistair Foot opened in 1971 and despite poor reviews ran there until moved to the Garrick Theatre in 1982. Stoppard's The Real Thing opened in that year, and in 1989 Much Ado about Nothing and Chekhov's Ivanov ran in repertory.