The Ashcroft Theatre is a
theatre
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...
located within the
Fairfield Halls
Fairfield Halls is an arts, entertainment and conference centre in Croydon, London, England, which opened in 1962 and contains a theatre and gallery, and a large concert hall regularly used for BBC television, radio and orchestral recordings. Fa ...
,
Croydon
Croydon is a large town in south London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a local government district of Greater London. It is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater London, with an extensi ...
,
South London
South London is the southern part of London, England, south of the River Thames. The region consists of the Districts of England, boroughs, in whole or in part, of London Borough of Bexley, Bexley, London Borough of Bromley, Bromley, London Borou ...
. The theatre was named after Croydon-born Dame
Peggy Ashcroft
Dame Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft (22 December 1907 – 14 June 1991), known professionally as Peggy Ashcroft, was an English actress whose career spanned more than 60 years.
Born to a comfortable middle-class family, Ashcroft was deter ...
and is a
proscenium
A proscenium ( grc-gre, προσκήνιον, ) is the metaphorical vertical plane of space in a theatre, usually surrounded on the top and sides by a physical proscenium arch (whether or not truly "arched") and on the bottom by the stage floor ...
theatre with a stepped auditorium. The mural on its fire curtain is by the artist
Henry Bird.
[ Henry Bird and his Theatrical Mural on the Ashcroft Theatre Safety Curtain, Croydon] A variety of productions are held throughout the year such as
drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...
,
ballet
Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...
,
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...
and
pantomime
Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and (to a lesser extent) in other English-speaking ...
. The venue has a
seating capacity
Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available, and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that ...
of 763 and can be converted into a cinema as it has a large screen giving full
Cinemascope
CinemaScope is an anamorphic lens series used, from 1953 to 1967, and less often later, for shooting widescreen films that, crucially, could be screened in theatres using existing equipment, albeit with a lens adapter. Its creation in 1953 by ...
and standard film format.
The Ashcroft Theatre was opened on 5 November 1962 by Dame Peggy Ashcroft. The opening ceremony included the reading of a monologue specially penned by Sir
John Betjeman
Sir John Betjeman (; 28 August 190619 May 1984) was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture, ...
called ‘Local Girl Makes Good'. The first play was ‘Royal Gambit' starring
Dulcie Gray
Dulcie Winifred Catherine Savage Denison, (''née'' Bailey; 20 November 1915 – 15 November 2011), known professionally as Dulcie Gray, was a British actress, mystery writer and lepidopterist.
While at drama school in the late 1930s she met ...
.
Those to have trodden the boards at The Ashcroft Theatre include
Richard Todd
Richard Andrew Palethorpe-Todd (11 June 19193 December 2009) was an Irish-British actor known for his leading man roles of the 1950s. He received a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer – Male, and an Academy Award for Best Actor n ...
,
Rex Harrison
Sir Reginald Carey "Rex" Harrison (5 March 1908 – 2 June 1990) was an English actor. Harrison began his career on the stage in 1924. He made his West End debut in 1936 appearing in the Terence Rattigan play ''French Without Tears'', in what ...
and Dame Peggy herself.
The auditorium is on two tiers with the stalls heavily raked. The front of the circle is unadorned and the straight walls have natural finishes. The stage, with false proscenium, is well equipped with 30 single purchase counterweight sets for flying, and an orchestra pit on a hydraulic lift which can accommodate up to 16 players. Alterations to the forestage were undertaken to lessen the barrier provided by the original Juliet balcony and side door structures.
The theatre closed in 2016 for renovation work on the Fairfield Halls, and reopened in September 2019. During the refurbishment, the centre aisles of the theatre were removed to create a Continental
Auditorium
An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances. For movie theatres, the number of auditoria (or auditoriums) is expressed as the number of screens. Auditoria can be found in entertainment venues, community ...
seating arrangement, increasing capacity to 798 without kills. Further works in January 2020 replaced the recycled seating from before the renovation works with new grey seating, creating a much more modern look.
Fire curtain
Safety curtain
A safety curtain (or fire curtain in America) is a fire safety precaution used in large proscenium Theater (structure), theatres. It is usually a heavy fibreglass or iron curtain located immediately behind the proscenium arch. Asbestos-based m ...
s date from the days of gas lighting and were meant to stop a fire onstage or backstage spreading to the auditorium. The Ashcroft Curtain was painted in 1982 by
Henry Bird, a Northampton-based artist famous for his murals and curtains. He died in 2000 aged 90.
There were many details, symbols and meanings in the curtain and they included references to the days of the Croydon Fair, the travelling players, famous artistic Croydonians and old English customs.
After the theatre re-opened in 2019, it did so without the iconic safety curtain, which did not survive the asbestos removal works.
References
External links
Official WebsiteAshcroft Theatre Club website
{{LB Croydon
Theatres in the London Borough of Croydon