Haymarket Theatre

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Haymarket Theatre, London. In 1720 John Potter, a carpenter, built a ‘Little Theatre in the Hay’ on the site of the old King's Head tavern, the first recorded performance being given in 1720 by a visiting French company. In 1729 the theatre, which was not licensed and could not stage ‘legitimate’ drama, had an unexpected success with a wild burlesque entitled Hurlothrumbo; or, The Supernatural, which ran for 30 nights. In the 1730s the satires of Henry Fielding, which attacked the Government and the Royal Family, brought notoriety to the theatre and led indirectly to the passing of the Licensing Act of 1737 which caused it to be closed down (see CENSORSHIP). It stood empty until in 1747 Samuel Foote took it over, evading the law by various ingenious methods. A feature of his entertainments was his mimicry of well-known persons, which soon became all the rage. He had set his heart on obtaining a patent for his theatre, which by accident he did in 1766, and although it was valid for the summer months only the Haymarket became a Theatre Royal, a title it still retains. Foote sold out in 1776 to the elder Colman, who made many improvements and launched the theatre on a period of prosperity, all the great actors of the day appearing there in the summer when Drury Lane and Covent Garden were closed. In 1794 Colman was succeeded by his son, who was always in financial difficulties. In 1817 he was imprisoned for debt; his brother-in-law and partner carried on alone, and in 1820 built the present Haymarket a little to the south of the old. The new building, designed by Nash, whose pedimented portico of six Corinthian columns extending over the pavement has survived reconstructions, opened in 1821 with Sheridan's The Rivals and in 1825 had a great success with Liston, always a prime favourite in comedy, in Poole's farce Paul Pry. In 1837 Benjamin Webster became manager, and under him the theatre was substantially altered, gas lighting being installed (the Haymarket was the last theatre in London to use candles) and the forestage and proscenium doors abolished. The theatre prospered, Phelps making his début there in 1837, and most of the great players of the day being seen there later. One of the good new plays, in which Webster himself appeared, was Masks and Faces (1852) by Tom Taylor and Charles Reade. A year later Webster was succeeded by Buckstone, an excellent comedian whose ghost is said to haunt the theatre. As Drury Lane at this time was little better than a showbooth and Covent Garden was given over to opera, the Haymarket became the leading playhouse of London. Under Buckstone's management Edwin Booth made his first appearance in London in 1861, in which year E. A. Sothern also came from the USA to appear as Lord Dundreary in Taylor's Our American Cousin. Sothern made a further success in 1864 in David Garrick, by the then unknown T. W. Robertson. Buckstone retired in 1879 and the Bancrofts took possession. They remodelled the interior of the theatre, doing away with the pit and taking the stage back behind the proscenium arch, making it the first picture-frame stage in London, and opened in 1880 with a revival of Bulwer-Lytton's Money. They ran the theatre most successfully, adding immensely to its prestige, until they retired in 1885. In 1887 the theatre passed into the hands of Tree, under whom Oscar Wilde's A Woman of No Importance (1893) and An Ideal Husband (1895) were first produced. His greatest success, however, was George Du Maurier's Trilby (also 1895). A year later Tree moved to Her Majesty's and Cyril Maude took over with Frederick Harrison, opening in 1896 with Under the Red Robe from Stanley Weyman's novel. After a long period of success Maude withdrew in 1905, having overseen the reconstruction of the interior, but Harrison carried on until his death in 1926. Among the outstanding successes were Barrie's Mary Rose (1920) with Fay Compton, who returned in 1925 in Ashley Dukes's The Man with a Load of Mischief; Yellow Sands (1926) by Eden and Adelaide Phillpotts; St John Ervine's The First Mrs Fraser (1929) with Marie Tempest; and Ten-Minute Alibi (1933) by Anthony Armstrong. The theatre escaped damage from enemy action during the Second World War and in 1944–5 housed a fine company in repertory under John Gielgud. In 1948 Helen Hayes made her first appearance in London in Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie. Notable later productions included The Heiress (1949), a dramatization of Henry James's novel Washington Square; N. C. Hunter's Waters of the Moon (1951) and A Day by the Sea (1953); Enid Bagnold's The Chalk Garden (1956); Robert Bolt's Flowering Cherry (1957); and Rattigan's Ross (1960) with Alec Guinness as T. E. Lawrence. All-star revivals held the stage until in 1971 Guinness returned in John Mortimer's A Voyage round My Father. A year later Royce Ryton's Crown Matrimonial, on the abdication of Edward VIII, had a long run. The theatre housed transfers of such Chichester revivals as Maugham's The Circle (1976), Waters of the Moon (1978), Shaw's The Millionairess (also 1978), and Congreve's The Way of the World (1984). In the 1980s there were more star revivals plus new plays such as Simon Gray's Melon (1987). In 1988 the theatre staged Tennessee Williams's Orpheus Descending, the first production of the Peter Hall Company, with Vanessa Redgrave, and in 1989 Mamet's A Life in the Theatre.