Commemorative plaque about the Coventry Theatre-Sept2012

The Coventry Theatre was a 2,000-seat

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 perfor ...

located on Hales Street in

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed b ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. It opened in 1937 as the New Hippodrome and was renamed the Coventry Theatre in 1955. In 1979 it was purchased by businessman

Paul Gregg Paul Gregg (born 1941 in Scarborough, North YorkshireGuthrie, Jonathon. (31 August 2004/ Home UK / UK – Pure theatre on and off the football pitch Ft.com.) is an English multi-millionaire businessman and entertainment impresario, who built Ap ...

and became the Coventry Apollo. It closed in 1985 with a performance by

Barbara Dickson Barbara Ruth Dickson (born 27 September 1947) is a Scottish singer and actress whose hits include 'I Know Him So Well', 'Answer Me' and ' January February'. Dickson has placed fifteen albums on the UK Albums Chart from 1977 to date, and had a ...

. In its later years the building became a bingo club before being demolished in 2002.

Alan Melville Alan Melville (19 May 1910 – 18 April 1983) was a South African cricketer who played in 11 Tests from 1938 to 1949. He was born in Carnarvon, Northern Cape, South Africa and died at Sabie, Transvaal. Early life and cricket career Melville w ...

's comedy '' Castle in the Air'' premiered at the theatre in 1949 before transferring to the West End.

References

Theatres in Coventry Demolished buildings and structures in England Buildings and structures demolished in 2002 {{music-venue-stub