Surrey Theatre

Surrey Theatre, London, in Blackfriars Road, Lambeth. This stood on the site of the Royal Circus which, rebuilt after a fire in 1806, was converted into a theatre by Robert Elliston, who gave it the name by which it was thereafter known. To avoid trouble with the Patent Theatres, Elliston introduced a ballet into every production, including Macbeth, Hamlet, and Farquhar's The Beaux' Stratagem. He left in 1814, and the Surrey became a circus again until it reopened as a theatre in 1816, with little success. Not until Elliston returned did its fortunes change, with the production in 1829 of Douglas Jerrold's Black-Ey'd Susan, which with T. P. Cooke as William, the nautical hero, had a long run. Osbaldiston took over when Elliston died, and among other plays produced Edward Fitzball's Jonathan Bradford; or, The Murder at the Roadside Inn, which ran for 260 nights. But it was Richard Shepherd (who succeeded Alfred Bunn in 1848 and remained at the theatre until 1869) who established the theatre's reputation for rough-and-tumble transpontine melodrama. In 1865 the theatre was again burnt down, and a new theatre, seating 2,161 in four tiers, opened in the same year. Little of note took place until 1881, when George Conquest took over, staging sensational dramas, many of them written by himself, which proved extremely popular, and each Christmas he put on an excellent pantomime. The Surrey prospered until his death in 1901, but thereafter went rapidly downhill until in 1920 it became a cinema. It finally closed in 1924 and the building was demolished in 1934.