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| Alhambra
(Leicester Square) |
The Central
London music hall in one of the City's great entertainment
spots began life as the Panopticon of Science and
Art in 1854. Destroyed by fire in 1882, the theatre
was noted for its Moorish architecture and its equestrian
ballet from 1871, when it obtained a licence. Rebuilt,
it became a music hall and variety theatre until its
demise in 1936. After its demolition, an Odeon cinema
was constructed on this valuable Leicester Square
property
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| Astley's
Amphitheatre (Westminster Bridge Road) |
| When retired cavalry
officer Philip Astley's old circus ring (built on the
site in 1784) burned down in 1794, he replaced it with
another, which burned down in 1803. Next, he built a
new hippodrome, which staged spectacular dramas under
the successful management of Andrew Ducrow. In 1862,
Boucicault's dramatisation of an incident in the Sepoy
Rebellion, The Relief of Lucknow, was produced here.
In 1863, Boucicault renamed the building The Theatre
Royal, Westminister, but met with no success. E. T.
Smith, succeeding as manager, gave the theatre its old
name and scored public acclaim with his equestrian adaptation
of Byron's poem Mazeppa. In 1872, George Sanger renamed
it Sanger's Grand National, which in 1893 was declared
an unsafe structure and subsequently demolished.
|
| The
Britannia (High Street, Hoxton) |
This working
class theatre built on the site of the Pimlico, an
Elizabethan tavern, was originally attached to the
Britannia Saloon. Sam Lane opened the establishment
as an entertainment house which in 1843, after the
abolition of the patent monopoly, became home to a
permanent acting company managed by the Lane family
until 1899. The resident dramatist of this colourful
East End theatre was the capable C. H. Hazlewood,
noted for his adaptation of Lady Audley's Secret (1863).
Famous for its Christmas pantomimes and melodramatic
spectacles, it was converted to a movie house in 1913.
|
| The
City of London (Norton Folgate) |
| The City of London
Theatre in Bishopsgate, built by architect Samuel Beazley
in 1837, "specialized in domestic and temperance
melodrama. It was closed in 1868" (p. li). Here
Edward Stirling's adaptation of The Pickwick Papers
ran through March and April of 1837, and here George
Dibdin Pitt's Nicholas Nickleby; or, The Schoolmaster
Abroad ran from 19 November through 17 December 1838. |
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