Westminster Theatre

Westminster Theatre, London.

1. This opened in 1832, and during the four years of its existence was never able to obtain a licence. The site was later occupied by part of the Imperial Theatre and subsequently by the Central Hall, Westminster.

2. In Palace Street, near Victoria Station. It opened in 1931, having originally been a chapel converted into a cinema in 1924, a new frontage being added. The two-tier auditorium seats 580. The crypt of the old building was converted into dressing-rooms and a bar, and the theatre opened with Henry Ainley in Bridie's The Anatomist. A wide variety of English and foreign plays was staged, among them revivals of Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author in 1932 and of Granville-Barker's Waste in 1936. The Group Theatre had its headquarters, and staged most of its productions, there. Several of Denis Johnston's plays were first seen there, including The Moon in the Yellow River (1934), The Old Lady Says ‘No!’ (1935), and A Bride for the Unicorn (1936), and O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness! (also 1936) was followed by his Mourning Becomes Electra (1937) and Marco Millions (1938). Other productions were The Zeal of Thy House (also 1938) by Dorothy L. Sayers, transferred from the Chapter House of Canterbury Cathedral, and T. S. Eliot's The Family Reunion (1939). The Westminster was the first theatre to reopen after the compulsory closure in Sept.1939, the production being Priestley's Music at Night. Paul Scofield made his début there in 1940 in O'Neill's Desire under the Elms, and other successful productions included Afinogenov's Distant Point (1941) and Bridie's Mr Bolfry (1943) and It Depends What You Mean (1944). The theatre was bought in 1946 by the evangelical Oxford Group, which used it mainly for productions promoting its ‘Moral Rearmament’ campaign such as Malcolm Muggeridge's Sentenced to Life (1978). Occasional returns to the commercial theatre included revivals of Coward's Relative Values (1973) and the Gershwins' Oh, Kay! (1974). The theatre however was often dark until in the late 1980s it came under ecumenical management (though the site itself did not change hands). Wilde's An Ideal Husband had a long run in 1989 and was followed over Christmas by adaptations of two of C. S. Lewis's children's stories.

A studio theatre, the First Floor Theatre (FFT), seating 107, was opened in 1989.