The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a
West End theatre
West End theatre is mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres in and near the West End of London.Christopher Innes, "West End" in ''The Cambridge Guide to Theatre'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 1194–1 ...
and
Grade I listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
in
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist si ...
,
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
,
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 b ...
. The building faces
Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto
Drury Lane
Drury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of Camden and the southern part in the City of Westminster.
Notable landmarks ...
. The building is the most recent in a line of four theatres which were built at the same location, the earliest of which dated back to 1663, making it the oldest theatre site in London still in use. According to the author Peter Thomson, for its first two centuries, Drury Lane could "reasonably have claimed to be London's leading theatre". For most of that time, it was one of a handful of
patent theatres, granted monopoly rights to the production of
"legitimate" drama in London (meaning spoken plays, rather than opera, dance, concerts, or plays with music).
The first theatre on the site was built at the behest of
Thomas Killigrew
Thomas Killigrew (7 February 1612 – 19 March 1683) was an English dramatist and theatre manager. He was a witty, dissolute figure at the court of King Charles II of England.
Life
Killigrew was one of twelve children of Sir Robert Killigrew ...
in the early 1660s, when theatres were allowed to reopen during the
English Restoration
The Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland took place in 1660 when King Charles II returned from exile in continental Europe. The preceding period of the Protectorate and the civil wars came to be ...
. Initially known as "Theatre Royal in Bridges Street", the theatre's proprietors hired prominent actors who performed at the theatre on a regular basis, including
Nell Gwyn and
Charles Hart. In 1672, the theatre caught fire and Killigrew built a larger theatre on the same plot, renamed the "Theatre Royal in Drury Lane"; it opened in 1674. This building lasted nearly 120 years, under the leaderships of
Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber (6 November 1671 – 11 December 1757) was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir ''Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber'' (1740) describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling ...
,
David Garrick
David Garrick (19 February 1717 – 20 January 1779) was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of European theatrical practice throughout the 18th century, and was a pupil and friend of Sa ...
and
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan (30 October 17517 July 1816) was an Irish satirist, a politician, a playwright, poet, and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. He is known for his plays such as ''The Rivals'', ''The Sc ...
, the last of whom employed
Joseph Grimaldi
Joseph Grimaldi (18 December 1778 – 31 May 1837) was an English actor, comedian and dancer, who became the most popular English entertainer of the Regency era.Byrne, Eugene"The patient" Historyextra.com, 13 April 2012 In the early 1800s, ...
as the theatre's resident Clown.
In 1791, under Sheridan's management, the building was demolished to make way for a larger theatre which opened in 1794. This new Drury Lane survived for 15 years before burning down in 1809. The building that stands today opened in 1812. It has been the residency of well known actors including
Edmund Kean
Edmund Kean (4 November 178715 May 1833) was a celebrated British Shakespearean stage actor born in England, who performed, among other places, in London, Belfast, New York, Quebec, and Paris. He was known for his short stature, tumultuo ...
, comedian
Dan Leno
George Wild Galvin (20 December 1860 – 31 October 1904), better known by the stage name Dan Leno, was a leading English music hall comedian and musical theatre actor during the late Victorian era. He was best known, aside from his music hall ...
and the musical composer and performer
Ivor Novello. From the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, the theatre has primarily hosted long runs of musicals, including ''
Oklahoma!
''Oklahoma!'' is the first musical theater, musical written by the duo of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, ''Green Grow the Lilacs (play), Green Grow the Lilacs''. Set in farm country outside the town of ...
'', ''
My Fair Lady
''My Fair Lady'' is a musical based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play ''Pygmalion'', with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons f ...
'', ''
42nd Street'' and ''
Miss Saigon
''Miss Saigon'' is a stage musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby Jr. It is based on Giacomo Puccini's 1904 opera ''Madame Butterfly'', and similarly tells the tragic tale of a doomed rom ...
'', the theatre's longest-running show.
The theatre is owned by the composer
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber (born 22 March 1948), is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 21 musicals, ...
. Since January 2019, the venue has had ongoing renovations, and in July 2021, the theatre reopened after over two years' of extensive work and closures related to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
. Disney's
''Frozen'' made its
West End debut at Drury Lane on 27 August, with general shows starting from 8 September 2021.
First theatre: Theatre Royal, Bridges Street (1663)
![Thomas killigrew 1650](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Thomas_killigrew_1650.jpg)
A playhouse known as the
Cockpit Theatre
The Cockpit was a theatre in London, operating from 1616 to around 1665. It was the first theatre to be located near Drury Lane. After damage in 1617, it was named The Phoenix.
History
The original building was an actual cockpit; that is, a st ...
used by
Queen Anne's Men
Queen Anne's Men was a playing company, or troupe of actors, in Jacobean era London. In their own era they were known colloquially as the Queen's Men — as were Queen Elizabeth's Men and Queen Henrietta's Men, in theirs.
Formation
The group w ...
on Drury Lane was targetted by rioting apprentices on 4 March 1617. After the eleven-year-long
Puritan Interregnum, which had seen the banning of pastimes regarded as frivolous, such as theatre, the English monarchy was
restored
''Restored'' is the fourth
studio album by American contemporary Christian music musician Jeremy Camp. It was released on November 16, 2004 by BEC Recordings.
Track listing
Standard release
Enhanced edition
Deluxe gold edition
Standard ...
to the throne with the return of
Charles II in 1660. Soon after, Charles issued
Letters Patent
Letters patent ( la, litterae patentes) ( always in the plural) are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch, president or other head of state, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, titl ...
to two parties licensing the formation of new acting companies. One of these went to
Thomas Killigrew
Thomas Killigrew (7 February 1612 – 19 March 1683) was an English dramatist and theatre manager. He was a witty, dissolute figure at the court of King Charles II of England.
Life
Killigrew was one of twelve children of Sir Robert Killigrew ...
, whose company became known as the
King's Company
The King's Company was one of two enterprises granted the rights to mount theatrical productions in London, after the London theatre closure had been lifted at the start of the English Restoration. It existed from 1660 to 1682, when it merged wit ...
, and who built a new theatre in Drury Lane. The Letters Patent also granted the two companies a shared monopoly on the public performance of legitimate drama in London; this monopoly was challenged in the 18th century by new venues and by a certain slipperiness in the definition of "legitimate drama," but remained legally in place until 1843. The new playhouse, architect unknown, opened on 7 May 1663 and was known from the placement of the entrance as the "Theatre Royal in Bridges Street." It went by other names as well, including the "King's Playhouse." The building was a three-tiered wooden structure, long and wide; it could hold an audience of 700.
Set well back from the broader streets, the theatre was accessed by narrow passages between surrounding buildings.
The King himself frequently attended the theatre's productions, as did
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys (; 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English diarist and naval administrator. He served as administrator of the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament and is most famous for the diary he kept for a decade. Pepys had no mariti ...
, whose private diaries provide much of what we know of London theatre-going in the 1660s. The day after the Theatre Royal opened, Pepys attended a performance of
Francis Beaumont
Francis Beaumont ( ; 1584 – 6 March 1616) was a dramatist in the English Renaissance theatre, most famous for his collaborations with John Fletcher.
Beaumont's life
Beaumont was the son of Sir Francis Beaumont of Grace Dieu, near Thrin ...
and
John Fletcher's ''
The Humorous Lieutenant
''The Humorous Lieutenant'', also known as ''The Noble Enemies'', ''Demetrius and Enanthe'', or ''Alexander's Successors'', is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy written by John Fletcher. Highly praised by critics, it has been called "Fl ...
''. He has this to say in his diary:
![Drury lane inset map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Drury_lane_inset_map.png)
Performances usually began at 3 pm to take advantage of the daylight: the main floor for the audience, the pit, had no roof in order to let in the light. A glazed dome was built over the opening, but according to one of Pepys' diary entries, the dome was not entirely effective at keeping out the elements: he and his wife were forced to leave the theatre to take refuge from a hail storm. Green
baize
Baize is a coarse woollen (or in cheaper variants cotton) cloth, similar in texture to felt, but more durable.
History
A mid-17th-century English ditty—much quoted in histories of ale and beer brewing in England—refers to 1525:
Hops, her ...
cloth covered the benches in the pit and served to decorate the boxes, additionally ornamented with gold-tooled leather, and even the stage itself. The backless green benches in the pit were in a semicircular arrangement facing the stage, according to a May 1663 letter from one Monsieur de Maonconys: "All benches of the pit, where people of rank also sit, are shaped in a semi-circle, each row higher than the next." The three galleries formed a semicircle around the floor seats; both the first and second galleries were divided up into boxes.
The King's Company was forced to commission the technically advanced and expensive Theatre Royal playhouse by the success of the rival
Duke's Company
The Duke's Company was a theatre company chartered by King Charles II at the start of the Restoration era, 1660. Sir William Davenant was manager of the company under the patronage of Prince James, Duke of York. During hats period, theatres b ...
, which was drawing fascinated crowds with their "moveable" or "changeable"
scenery
Theatrical scenery is that which is used as a setting for a theatrical production. Scenery may be just about anything, from a single chair to an elaborately re-created street, no matter how large or how small, whether the item was custom-made or ...
and visually gorgeous productions at the former
Lisle's Tennis Court
Lisle's Tennis Court was a building off Portugal Street in Lincoln's Inn Fields in London. Originally built as a real tennis court, it was used as a playhouse during two periods, 1661–1674 and 1695–1705. During the early period, ...
at
Lincoln's Inn Fields
Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in develo ...
. Imitating the innovations at Lincoln's Inn Fields, the Theatre Royal also featured moveable scenery with
wings
A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expresse ...
or ''shutters'' that could be smoothly changed between or even within acts. When not in use, the shutters rested out of sight behind the sides of the
proscenium arch
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 ...
, which also served as a visual frame for the on-stage happenings. The picture-frame-like separation between audience and performance was a new phenomenon in English theatre, though it had been found on the Continent earlier. Theatre design in London remained ambivalent about the merits of the "picture-box" stage, and for many decades to come, London theatres including Drury Lane had large forestages protruding beyond the arch, often including the
thrust stage
In theatre, a thrust stage (also known as a platform stage or open stage) is one that extends into the audience on three sides and is connected to the backstage area by its upstage end. A thrust has the benefit of greater intimacy between performe ...
s found in the
Elizabethan theatres. The players could still step forward and bridge the distance between performer and audience, and in addition, it was not unusual for audience members to mount the stage themselves.
Killigrew's investment in the new playhouse put the two companies on a level as far as technical resources were concerned, but the offerings at the Theatre Royal nevertheless continued to be dominated by actor-driven "talk" drama, contrasting with
William Davenant
Sir William Davenant (baptised 3 March 1606 – 7 April 1668), also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned bot ...
's baroque
spectacles
Glasses, also known as eyeglasses or spectacles, are vision eyewear, with lenses (clear or tinted) mounted in a frame that holds them in front of a person's eyes, typically utilizing a bridge over the nose and hinged arms (known as temples o ...
and operas at
Lincoln's Inn Fields
Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in develo ...
. Internal power structures were the main reason for this difference: while Davenant skilfully commanded a docile young troupe, Killigrew's authority over his veteran actors was far from absolute. Experienced actors
Michael Mohun
Michael Mohun (1616? – buried 11 October 1684) was a leading English actor both before and after the 1642–60 closing of the theatres.
Mohun began his stage career as a boy player filling female roles; he was part of Christopher Beeston's the ...
(who Pepys called "the best actor in the world") and Charles Hart held out for shares and good contracts in the King's Company. Such a division of power between the patentee, Killigrew, and his chief actors led to frequent conflicts that hampered the Theatre Royal as a business venture. Nevertheless, it was mostly at the struggling Theatre Royal, rather than at the efficiently run Lincoln's Inn Fields, that the plays were acted that are classics today. This applies especially to the new form
Restoration comedy, dominated in the 1660s by
William Wycherley
William Wycherley (baptised 8 April 16411 January 1716) was an England, English dramatist of the English Restoration, Restoration period, best known for the plays ''The Country Wife'' and ''The Plain Dealer (play), The Plain Dealer''.
Early lif ...
and the Theatre Royal's house dramatist
John Dryden
''
John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate.
He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the per ...
. Actors such as Hart and Charles II's mistress
Nell Gwyn developed and refined the famous scenes of repartee, banter and flirtation in Dryden's and Wycherley's comedies. With the appearance of actresses for the first time at Drury Lane and Lincoln's Inn Fields in the 1660s, British playwrights wrote parts for outspoken female characters, daring love scenes and provocative
breeches role
A breeches role (also pants role or trouser role, or Hosenrolle) is one in which an actress appears in male clothing. Breeches, tight-fitting knee-length pants, were the standard male garment at the time these roles were introduced. The theatric ...
s.
In any case, the competition between the King's Company and the Duke's was good for the rebirth and development of English drama.
The
Great Plague of London
The Great Plague of London, lasting from 1665 to 1666, was the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England. It happened within the centuries-long Second Pandemic, a period of intermittent bubonic plague epidemics that origi ...
struck in the summer of 1665, and the Theatre Royal, along with all other public entertainment, was shut down by order of the Crown on 5 June. It remained closed for 18 months until the autumn of 1666, during which time it received at least a little interior renovation, including widening of the stage. Located well to the west of the City boundary, the theatre was unaffected by the
Great Fire of London
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past the ...
, which raged through the City in September 1666, but it burned down six years later on 25 January 1672.
Second theatre: Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (1674)
![Drury](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Drury.Lane.figures2.png)
During the 20th century, one illustration was repeatedly – and wrongly – published as "Christopher Wren, design for the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, 1674". Since 1964, this presumption has been disputed by scholars. Careful inspection of the drawing at
All Souls' College, Oxford
All Souls College (official name: College of the Souls of All the Faithful Departed) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Unique to All Souls, all of its members automatically become fellows (i.e., full members of t ...
Library shows that it has one pencil inscription: "Play house" , which may have been added by a librarian or by anyone else. No sign of a signature (by Wren or anyone else) or a date appears anywhere on the drawing.
[Howell-Meri, Mark]
"Acting Spaces and Carpenters' Tools: from the Fortune to the Theatre Royal, Bristol"
, ''New Theatre Quarterly'', Vol. 25, Issue 2, May 2009, pp. 148–158 Robert D. Hume of
Penn State University
The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a public state-related land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania. Founded in 1855 as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, Penn State became ...
explained that use of the drawing "rests almost entirely on the ''supposition'' that the so-called "Wren section" at All Souls represents this theatre. It could just as easily be a discarded sketch unconnected to Drury Lane in any way."
Comparative evidence for Drury Lane's 1674 design can be found in the
Theatre Royal, Bristol
Bristol Old Vic is a British theatre company based at the Theatre Royal, Bristol. The present company was established in 1946 as an offshoot of the Old Vic in London. It is associated with the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which became a fin ...
, built in 1766, whose design was modelled, in part, on Drury Lane's.
The site measured east-west and north-south. The building was smaller than this, as reliable surveys and maps of the period show three passageways measuring between wide surrounding the Theatre Royal on three sides. The building probably measured between wide (the average width of all "Restoration" Theatres) and between long. Architect
Robert Adam
Robert Adam (3 July 17283 March 1792) was a British neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam (1689–1748), Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him. With his o ...
designed Drury Lane's 1674 interior. The theatre was managed, from 1747 to Adam's retirement in the 1770s, by
David Garrick
David Garrick (19 February 1717 – 20 January 1779) was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of European theatrical practice throughout the 18th century, and was a pupil and friend of Sa ...
.
The King's Company never recovered financially from the loss of the old Theatre Royal Bridges Street. The cost of constructing the new theatre, replacing their costumes and scenery lost in the fire and competitive pressure from the rival Duke's Company contributed to its decline. Eventually, in 1682, the King's Company merged with the Duke's. The 1674 Theatre Royal building contained a warren of rooms, including storage space and dressing rooms used by the management and performers, nearly seventy people in total, as well as some fifty technical staff members.
Additionally three rooms were provided for scripts, including a library for their storage, a separate room for copying actors' parts and a special library for the theatre's account books, ledger books and music scores. This jumble of rooms often made communication among various departments difficult, a problem that Garrick corrected during his tenure as manager. The entire complex occupied bounded by Drury Lane (east), Brydges Street (west), Great Russell Street (north) and Little Russell Street (south).
From 1674, theatregoers accessed the Drury Lane via a long ten foot wide passageway from Bridges Street. The passageway opened onto a yard (previously a "Riding Yard") in which the theatre stood. It's likely that the yard remained open to the sky at this date, on three sides of the Theatre Royal walls. Henri Misson, a visitor from France, offers a description of the theatre in 1698: his use of the word "amphitheatre" supports the view that Drury Lane had a circular line of boxes surrounding its pit:
As Misson points out, the seating was divided by
class
Class or The Class may refer to:
Common uses not otherwise categorized
* Class (biology), a taxonomic rank
* Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects
* Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used differentl ...
, and tickets were priced accordingly. Box seats, used by the nobility and wealthy gentry, cost 5
shilling
The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 12 pence o ...
s; the benches in the pit where some gentry sat, but also critics and scholars, cost 3 shillings; tradesmen and professionals occupied the first gallery with seats costing 2 shillings, while servants and other "ordinary people", as Misson refers to them, occupied the 1 shilling seats of the upper gallery. Seats were not numbered and were offered on a "first come, first served" basis, leading many members of the gentry to send servants to reserve seats well ahead of performances.
The stage was wide and deep with a
raked floor from the footlights to the backdrop. The angle of the rake rose one inch for every of horizontal stage. The stage floor included grooves for wings and flats in addition to trap doors in the floor. The proscenium arch covered the stage equipment above the stage that included a pair of girondels – large wheels holding many candles used to counteract the light from the footlights. Towards the latter part of the 18th century, doors were placed on either side of the stage, and a series of small spikes traced the edge of the stage apron to prevent audiences from climbing onto the stage. At the very back of the stage, a wide door opened to reveal Drury Lane.
An added difficulty for Killigrew and his sons Thomas and Charles was the political unrest of 1678–1684 with the
Popish Plot
The Popish Plot was a fictitious conspiracy invented by Titus Oates that between 1678 and 1681 gripped the Kingdoms of England and Scotland in anti-Catholic hysteria. Oates alleged that there was an extensive Catholic conspiracy to assassinate C ...
and the
Exclusion Bill
The Exclusion Crisis ran from 1679 until 1681 in the reign of King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland. Three Exclusion bills sought to exclude the King's brother and heir presumptive, James, Duke of York, from the thrones of England, Sco ...
crisis distracting potential audiences from things theatrical. This affected both the King's and the Duke's companies, but most of all the King's which had no profit margin to carry them through the lean years. In 1682, the companies merged, or rather, the King's was absorbed by the Duke's. Led at the time by
Thomas Betterton
Thomas Patrick Betterton (August 1635 – 28 April 1710), the leading male actor and theatre manager during Restoration England, son of an under-cook to King Charles I, was born in London.
Apprentice and actor
Betterton was born in August 16 ...
, the United Company, as it was now called, chose Drury Lane as their production house, leaving the Duke's Company's theatre in
Dorset Garden
The Dorset Garden Theatre in London, built in 1671, was in its early years also known as the Duke of York's Theatre, or the Duke's Theatre. In 1685, King Charles II died and his brother, the Duke of York, was crowned as James II. When the D ...
closed for a time. In 1688, Betterton was removed from managerial control by
Alexander Davenant
Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history.
Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...
, son of
William Davenant
Sir William Davenant (baptised 3 March 1606 – 7 April 1668), also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned bot ...
, the original patent holder for the Duke's Company. Davenant's management (with Charles Killigrew) proved brief and disastrous, and by 1693 he was fleeing to the
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...
in the wake of embezzlement charges. The Theatre Royal found itself in the hands of lawyer
Christopher Rich for the next 16 years.
Neither Davenant's nor Killigrew's sons were much better than crooks, and Rich attempted to recoup their depredations of the company's resources by cost-cutting tyranny, pitting actor against actor and slashing salaries. By 1695, the actors, including day-to-day manager and acting legend Thomas Betterton, were alienated and humiliated enough to walk out and set up a cooperative company of their own. Nine men and six women departed, all of them established professional performers, including such draws as tragedian
Elizabeth Barry
Elizabeth Barry (1658 – 7 November 1713) was an English actress of the Restoration period.
Elizabeth Barry's biggest influence on Restoration drama was her presentation of performing as the tragic actress. She worked in large, prestigious L ...
and comedian
Anne Bracegirdle
Anne Bracegirdle (possibly 167112 September 1748) was an English actress.
Biography
Bracegirdle was born to Justinian and Martha (born Furniss) Bracegirdle in Northamptonshire. She was baptised in Northampton on 15 November 1671, although her to ...
, leaving the United Company – henceforth known as the "Patent Company" – in "a very despicable condition," according to an anonymous contemporary pamphlet:
![William Hogarth - David Garrick as Richard III - Google Art Project](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/William_Hogarth_-_David_Garrick_as_Richard_III_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
A private letter from 19 November 1696 reported that Drury Lane "has no company at all, and unless a new play comes out on Saturday revives their reputation, they must break." The new play is assumed to have been
John Vanbrugh
Sir John Vanbrugh (; 24 January 1664 (baptised) – 26 March 1726) was an English architect, dramatist and herald, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restora ...
's ''
The Relapse
''The Relapse, or, Virtue in Danger'' is a Restoration comedy from 1696 written by John Vanbrugh. The play is a sequel to Colley Cibber's '' Love's Last Shift, or, The Fool in Fashion''.
In Cibber's ''Love's Last Shift'', a free-living Rest ...
'', and it turned out the success the company needed. Christopher Rich continued as its head until 1709, when the patent in question was actually revoked amid a complex tangle of political machinations. A lawyer named William Collier was briefly given the right to mount productions in Drury Lane, but by 1710 the troupe was in the hands of the actors
Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber (6 November 1671 – 11 December 1757) was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir ''Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber'' (1740) describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling ...
,
Robert Wilks
Robert Wilks (''c.'' 1665 – 27 September 1732) was a British actor and theatrical manager who was one of the leading managers of Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in its heyday of the 1710s. He was, with Colley Cibber and Thomas Doggett, one of th ...
, and
Thomas Doggett
Thomas Doggett (or Dogget) (20 September 1721) was an Irish actor. The birth date of 1640 seems unlikely. A more probable date of 1670 is given in the Encyclopædia Britannica.
Biography
Doggett was born in Dublin, and made his first stage app ...
– a triumvirate that eventually found themselves sharply satirised in
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...
's ''
Dunciad
''The Dunciad'' is a landmark, mock-heroic, narrative poem by Alexander Pope published in three different versions at different times from 1728 to 1743. The poem celebrates a goddess Dulness and the progress of her chosen agents as they bring ...
''. In 1713,
Barton Booth
Barton Booth (168210 May 1733) was one of the most famous dramatic actors of the first part of the 18th century.
Early life
Booth was the son of The Hon and Very Revd Dr Robert Booth (priest), Robert Booth, Dean of Bristol, by his first wife ...
replaced Doggett. On 2 March 1717 was the premiere of the ballet
The Loves of Mars and Venus
The ''Loves of Mars and Venus'' by John Weaver was arguably the first modern ballet, the first dance work to tell a story through dance, gesture and music alone. Its first performance was at London's Drury Lane Theatre on Saturday 2 March 1717.
...
choreographed by
John Weaver, and was the first ballet to be performed in England.
Cibber was the ''de facto'' leader of the triumvirate, and he led the theatre through a controversial but generally successful period until 1733, when he sold his controlling interest to
John Highmore
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Second ...
. It is likely that the sale was at a vastly inflated price and that Colley's goal was simply to get out of debts and make a profit (see Robert Lowe in his edition of Cibber's ''Apology''). Members of the troupe at the time were most displeased; an actor's revolt was organised and executed;
Charles Fleetwood
Charles Fleetwood (c. 1618 – 4 October 1692) was an English Parliamentarian soldier and politician, Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1652–1655, where he enforced the Cromwellian Settlement. Named Cromwell's Lieutenant General for the Third Englis ...
came to control the theatre. Fleetwood's tenure was tumultuous; his abolition of the practice of allowing
footmen
A footman is a male domestic worker employed mainly to wait at table or attend a coach or carriage.
Etymology
Originally in the 14th century a footman denoted a soldier or any pedestrian, later it indicated a foot servant. A running footman deli ...
free access to the upper gallery led to riots in 1737, and Fleetwood's gambling problems entangled the theatre in his own financial difficulties.
It was during this period that actor
Charles Macklin
Charles Macklin (26 September 1699 – 11 July 1797), (Gaelic: Cathal MacLochlainn, English: Charles McLaughlin), was an Irish actor and dramatist who performed extensively at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Macklin revolutionised theatre in ...
(a native of
Inishowen
Inishowen () is a peninsula in the north of County Donegal in Ireland. Inishowen is the largest peninsula on the island of Ireland.
The Inishowen peninsula includes Ireland's most northerly point, Malin Head. The Grianan of Aileach, a ringfort ...
in
County Donegal
County Donegal ( ; ga, Contae Dhún na nGall) is a county of Ireland in the province of Ulster and in the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town of Donegal in the south of the county. It has also been known as County Tyrconne ...
in
Ulster
Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United King ...
) rose to fame, propelled by a singular performance as
Shylock
Shylock is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's play ''The Merchant of Venice'' (c. 1600). A Venetian Jewish moneylender, Shylock is the play's principal antagonist. His defeat and conversion to Christianity form the climax of the ...
in an early 1741 production of ''
The Merchant of Venice
''The Merchant of Venice'' is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. A merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock.
Although classified as ...
'', in which he introduced a realistic, naturalistic style of acting, abandoning the artificial bombast typical of dramatic roles prior.
![Drury lane facade 1775](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Drury_lane_facade_1775.png)
In 1747, Fleetwood's playhouse patent expired. The theatre and a patent renewal were purchased by actor
David Garrick
David Garrick (19 February 1717 – 20 January 1779) was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of European theatrical practice throughout the 18th century, and was a pupil and friend of Sa ...
(who had trained under Macklin earlier) and partner
James Lacy. Garrick served as manager and lead actor of the theatre until roughly 1766, and continued on in the management role for another ten years after that. He is remembered as one of the great stage actors and is especially associated with advancing the
Shakespearean
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
tradition in English theatre – during his time at Drury Lane, the company mounted at least 24 of Shakespeare's plays. Some of Shakespeare's surge in popularity during this period can be traced to the
Licensing Act of 1737, which mandated governmental approval of any play before it could be performed and thereby created something of a vacuum of new material to perform. Garrick shared the stage with company including
Peg Woffington
Margaret Woffington (18 October 1720 – 28 March 1760), known professionally as Peg Woffington, was an Irish actress and socialite of the Georgian era. Peg and Peggy were a common pet name for those called Margaret until the late 20th centu ...
,
Susannah Cibber
Susannah Maria Cibber (née Arne; February 1714 – 30 January 1766) was a celebrated English singer and actress. She was the sister of the composer Thomas Arne. Although she began her career as a soprano, her voice lowered in the early part of ...
,
Hannah Pritchard
Hannah Pritchard (née Vaughan, 1711–1768) was an English actress who regularly played opposite David Garrick. She performed many significant Shakespearean roles and created on stage many important female roles by contemporary playwrights.
Lif ...
,
Kitty Clive
Catherine Clive (née Raftor; 5 November 1711 – 6 December 1785) Catherine ‘Kitty’ Clive (1711-1785, active 1728-1769) was a first songster and star comedienne of British playhouse entertainment. Clive led and created new forms of English ...
,
Spranger Barry
Spranger Barry (23 November 1719 – 10 January 1777) was an Irish actor.
Life
He was born in Skinner's Row, Dublin, the son of a silversmith, to whose business he was brought up. He took over the business but was not successful.
His fir ...
,
Richard Yates and
Ned Shuter. It was under Garrick's management that spectators were for the first time barred from the stage itself.
Garrick commissioned
Robert Adam
Robert Adam (3 July 17283 March 1792) was a British neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam (1689–1748), Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him. With his o ...
and his brother
James
James is a common English language surname and given name:
*James (name), the typically masculine first name James
* James (surname), various people with the last name James
James or James City may also refer to:
People
* King James (disambiguat ...
to renovate the theatre's interior, which they did in 1775. Their additions included an ornate ceiling and a
stucco
Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...
facade facing Bridges Street. This facade was the first time any structure that might be considered part of the theatre proper actually abutted the street: the building, like the 1663 original, had been built in the centre of the block, hemmed in by other structures. The narrow passage from Bridges street to the theatre now became an interior hallway; some theatre office space also went up behind the new facade.
![Drury lane interior 1808](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Drury_lane_interior_1808.jpg)
With a series of farewell performances, Garrick left the stage in 1776 and sold his shares in the theatre to the Irish playwright
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan (30 October 17517 July 1816) was an Irish satirist, a politician, a playwright, poet, and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. He is known for his plays such as ''The Rivals'', ''The Sc ...
. Sheridan and his partners,
Thomas Linley the elder
Thomas Linley (17 January 1733 – 19 November 1795) was an English bass and musician active in Bath, Somerset. Born in Badminton, Gloucestershire, Linley began his musical career after he moved to Bath at age 11 and became apprentice to the o ...
and Doctor James Ford (court physician to
King George III
George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...
), completed their purchase of Drury Lane two years later, and Sheridan owned it until 1809. Sheridan premiered his own
comedy of manners
In English literature, the term comedy of manners (also anti-sentimental comedy) describes a genre of realistic, satirical comedy of the Restoration period (1660–1710) that questions and comments upon the manners and social conventions of a gre ...
''
The School for Scandal
''The School for Scandal'' is a comedy of manners written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. It was first performed in London at Drury Lane Theatre on 8 May 1777.
Plot
Act I
Scene I: Lady Sneerwell, a wealthy young widow, and her hireling Sna ...
'' in 1777. Active management of the theatre was carried out by several parties during Sheridan's ownership, including himself, his father
Thomas
Thomas may refer to:
People
* List of people with given name Thomas
* Thomas (name)
* Thomas (surname)
* Saint Thomas (disambiguation)
* Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church
* Thomas the Ap ...
, and, from 1788 to 1796 and 1800 to 1802, the popular actor
John Philip Kemble
John Philip Kemble (1 February 1757 – 26 February 1823) was a British actor. He was born into a theatrical family as the eldest son of Roger Kemble, actor-manager of a touring troupe. His elder sister Sarah Siddons achieved fame with him on t ...
. Linley took up the post of Musical Director at the theatre, receiving a retainer of £500 per annum.
Sheridan employed dozens of children as extras at Drury Lane including
Joseph Grimaldi
Joseph Grimaldi (18 December 1778 – 31 May 1837) was an English actor, comedian and dancer, who became the most popular English entertainer of the Regency era.Byrne, Eugene"The patient" Historyextra.com, 13 April 2012 In the early 1800s, ...
who made his stage debut at the theatre in 1780. Grimaldi became best known for his development of the modern day white-face
clown
A clown is a person who performs comedy and arts in a state of open-mindedness using physical comedy, typically while wearing distinct makeup or costuming and reversing folkway-norms.
History
The most ancient clowns have been found in ...
and popularised the role of Clown in many
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 ...
s and
Harlequinade
''Harlequinade'' is a British comic theatrical genre, defined by the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' as "that part of a pantomime in which the harlequin and clown play the principal parts". It developed in England between the 17th and mid-19th cent ...
s. Towards the end of the 1790s, Grimaldi starred in ''
Robinson Crusoe
''Robinson Crusoe'' () is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. The first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a tra ...
'', which confirmed him as a key Christmas pantomime performer. Many pantomimes followed, but his career at Drury Lane became turbulent, and he left the theatre for good in 1806.
Third theatre (1794)
![Drury Lane exterior 1809](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Drury_Lane_exterior_1809.jpg)
The theatre was in need of updating by the end of the 18th century and was demolished in 1791, with the company moving temporarily to the new
King's Theatre, in the
Haymarket Haymarket may refer to:
Places
Australia
* Haymarket, New South Wales, area of Sydney, Australia
Germany
* Heumarkt (KVB), transport interchange in Cologne on the site of the Heumarkt (literally: hay market)
Russia
* Sennaya Square (''Hay Squ ...
. A third theatre was designed by
Henry Holland and opened on 12 March 1794. In the design of the theatre boxes, Henry Holland asked
John Linnell
John Sidney Linnell ( ; born June 12, 1959) is an American musician, known primarily as one half of the Brooklyn-based alternative rock band They Might Be Giants with John Flansburgh, which was formed in 1982. In addition to singing and songwri ...
for assistance. The designs by Linnell survive in the
V&A Print Room
A print room is a room in an art gallery or museum where a collection of old master and modern prints, usually together with drawings, watercolours, and photographs, are held and viewed.
A further meaning is a room decorated by pasting prints ...
– there are also designs by Henry Holland and
Charles Heathcote Tatham
Charles Heathcote Tatham (8 February 1772 in Westminster, London – 10 April 1842 in London), was an English architect of the early nineteenth century.
Early life
He was born in Duke Street, Westminster, the youngest of five sons of Ralph Tath ...
who were involved in the design process. This was a cavernous theatre, accommodating more than 3,600 spectators. The motivation behind building on such a large scale? In the words of one owner:
New technology facilitated the expansion: iron columns replaced bulky wood, supporting five tiers of galleries. The stage was large, too: wide and deep. Holland, the architect, said it was "on a larger scale than any other theatre in Europe." Except for churches, it was the tallest building in London.
The "very popular notion that our theatres ought to be very small" proved hard to overcome. Various accounts from the period bemoan the mammoth size of the new theatre, longing for the "warm close observant seats of Old Drury," as one May 1794 theatre-goer put it. Actress
Sarah Siddons
Sarah Siddons (''née'' Kemble; 5 July 1755 – 8 June 1831) was a Welsh actress, the best-known tragedienne of the 18th century. Contemporaneous critic William Hazlitt dubbed Siddons as "tragedy personified".
She was the elder sister of John ...
, then part of the Drury Lane company, called it "a wilderness of a place" (and left Drury Lane along with her brother
John Philip Kemble
John Philip Kemble (1 February 1757 – 26 February 1823) was a British actor. He was born into a theatrical family as the eldest son of Roger Kemble, actor-manager of a touring troupe. His elder sister Sarah Siddons achieved fame with him on t ...
in 1803). Not only was any sense of intimacy and connection to the company on stage lost, but the very size of the theatre put a great deal of the audience at such a distance from the stage so as to make hearing a player's voice quite difficult. To compensate, the productions mounted in the new theatre tended more toward spectacle than the spoken word.
An example of such a spectacle is a 1794 production that featured real water flowing down a rocky stream into a lake large enough on which to row a boat. This water issued from tanks in the attics above the house, which were installed – along with a much-touted iron
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 ...
– as proof against fire.
![The Burning of Drury Lane Theatre from Westminster Bridge](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/The_Burning_of_Drury_Lane_Theatre_from_Westminster_Bridge.jpg)
Richard Sheridan continued as theatre owner during the entire lifetime of this third building. He had grown in stature as a statesman during this time, but troubled finances were to be his undoing. The 1794 rebuilding had cost double the original estimate of £80,000, and Sheridan bore the entirety of the debt. Productions were more expensive to mount in the larger structure, and increased audience revenues failed to make up the difference.
An assassination attempt against
King George III
George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...
took place at the theatre on 15 May 1800.
James Hadfield fired two pistol shots from the pit toward the King, sitting in the royal box. The shots missed by inches, Hadfield having been jostled by a
Mr Dyte. Hadfield was quickly subdued, and George, apparently unruffled, ordered the performance to continue.
The comedy actor
John Bannister became acting-manager in 1802. With Sheridan's son
Tom, and in the circle of
Richard Wroughton
Richard Wroughton (1748–1822), was an actor, who worked mainly in Covent Garden (now the Royal Opera house) and Drury Lane (now the Theatre Royal), and occasional in the city of his birth, Bath.
Acting at Covent Garden
He was born in 1748, ...
(stage-manager),
William Dowton
William Dowton (1764–1851) was a British actor.
Early life
Dowton, the son of an innkeeper and grocer at Exeter, was born in that city on 25 April 1764. At an early age he worked with a marble cutter, but in 1780 was articled to an archite ...
,
Michael Kelly,
Tom Dibdin and their likes, he helped to see the Theatre Royal through its next catastrophe. On 24 February 1809, despite the previously mentioned fire safety precautions, the theatre burned down. On being encountered drinking a glass of wine in the street while watching the fire, R.B. Sheridan was famously reported to have said: "A man may surely be allowed to take a glass of wine by his own fireside." Already on the shakiest financial ground, Sheridan was ruined entirely by the loss of the building. He turned to brewer
Samuel Whitbread, an old friend, for help. As well as investing strongly in the project, Whitbread agreed to head a committee that would manage the company and oversee the rebuilding of the theatre, but asked Sheridan to withdraw from management himself, which he did entirely by 1811.
Modern theatre (1812–present)
![Theatre Royal Drury Lane 1813](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Theatre_Royal_Drury_Lane_1813.png)
The present Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, designed by
Benjamin Dean Wyatt
Benjamin Dean Wyatt (1775–1852) was an English architect, part of the Wyatt family.
Early life
He was the son and pupil of the architect James Wyatt, and the brother of Matthew Cotes Wyatt. Before setting up as an architect in 1809, he joine ...
on behalf of the committee led by Whitbread, opened on 10 October 1812 with a production of ''
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
'' featuring
Robert Elliston in the title role. The new theatre made some concessions toward intimacy, seating 3,060 people, about 550 fewer than the earlier building (though this size is still considered an extremely large theatre). On 6 September 1817,
gas lighting
Gas lighting is the production of artificial light from combustion of a gaseous fuel, such as hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, propane, butane, acetylene, ethylene, coal gas (town gas) or natural gas. The light is produced either directl ...
was extended from the audience area to the stage, making it the first British theatre to be gaslit throughout. In 1820, the
portico
A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...
that still stands at the theatre's front entrance on Catherine Street was added, and in 1822 the interior underwent a significant remodelling. The
colonnade
In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curv ...
running down the Russell Street side of the building was added in 1831.
Productions relying more on scenery and effects than on dialogue and acting remained commonplace in the new facility. The 1823 production of ''Cataract of the Ganges'' had a finale featuring a horseback escape up a flowing cataract "with fire raging all around." Effects for an 1829 production were produced by
hydraulic
Hydraulics (from Greek: Υδραυλική) is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counter ...
apparatus that reportedly could discharge 39 tons of water.
There were those concerned that the theatre was failing in its role as one of the very few permitted to show legitimate drama. Management of the theatre after it reopened in 1813 fell to
Samuel James Arnold
Samuel James Arnold (1774–1852) was an English dramatist and theatrical manager. Under his management the Lyceum Theatre, London became the English Opera House, and staged the first English productions of many operas, including in 1824 Carl ...
, overseen by an amateur board of directors and a subcommittee focusing on the theatre as a centre for national culture. (
Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...
was briefly on this subcommittee, from June 1815 until leaving England in April 1816.) Actor
Edmund Kean
Edmund Kean (4 November 178715 May 1833) was a celebrated British Shakespearean stage actor born in England, who performed, among other places, in London, Belfast, New York, Quebec, and Paris. He was known for his short stature, tumultuo ...
was the on-stage highlight; like Macklin before him, he made his reputation as
Shylock
Shylock is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's play ''The Merchant of Venice'' (c. 1600). A Venetian Jewish moneylender, Shylock is the play's principal antagonist. His defeat and conversion to Christianity form the climax of the ...
, premiering in the role in 1814. Kean remained until 1820 through praise and notorious disputes with local playwrights such as
Charles Bucke
Charles Bucke (16 April 1781 – 31 July 1846) was an English writer who, despite being poor most of his life, still managed to produce roughly eleven different works, each varying in number of volumes and topics.
Life
Little is recorded conc ...
.
![Shakespeare's King John at Drury Lane Theatre](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Shakespeare%27s_King_John_at_Drury_Lane_Theatre.jpg)
Elliston leased the theatre from 1819 until he went bankrupt in 1826. An American,
Stephen Price of New York City's
Park Theatre, followed from 1826 to 1830.
Through most of the remainder of the 19th century, Drury Lane passed quickly from one proprietor to another. A
colonnade
In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curv ...
was added to the Russell Street frontage, in 1831, by architect
Samuel Beazley
Samuel Beazley (1786–1851) was an English architect, novelist, and playwright. He became the leading theatre architect of his time and the first notable English expert in that field.
After fighting in the Peninsular War, Beazley returned to Lo ...
. In 1833,
Alfred Bunn
Alfred Bunn (April 8, 1796 in LondonDecember 20, 1860 in Boulogne-sur-Mer) was an English theatrical manager. He was married to Margaret Agnes (née Somerville) Bunn, a minor actress, in 1819.
Biography
Bunn was appointed stage manager of D ...
gained control of both Drury Lane and Covent Garden, managing the former from 1833 to 1839, and again from 1843 to 1850. Following the lead of the
Lyceum Theatre, London
The Lyceum Theatre ( ) is a West End theatre located in the City of Westminster, on Wellington Street, just off the Strand in central London. It has a seating capacity of 2,100. The origins of the theatre date to 1765. Managed by Samuel Arnold ...
, Bunn championed English opera, rather than the Italian operas that had played earlier at the theatre. These included ''Fair Rosamond'' and ''Farinelli'' by
John Barnett
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Second ...
; a series of twelve operas by
Michael Balfe
Michael William Balfe (15 May 1808 – 20 October 1870) was an Irish composer, best remembered for his operas, especially ''The Bohemian Girl''.
After a short career as a violinist, Balfe pursued an operatic singing career, while he began to co ...
including ''
The Maid of Artois
''The Maid of Artois'' is an opera by Michael William Balfe, written in 1836 to a libretto by Alfred Bunn, manager of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London, who based his work on Eugène Scribe's stage version of Abbé Prévost's novel '' Manon L ...
'' and ''
The Bohemian Girl
''The Bohemian Girl'' is an Irish Romantic opera composed by Michael William Balfe with a libretto by Alfred Bunn. The plot is loosely based on a Miguel de Cervantes' tale, ''La Gitanilla''.
The best-known aria from the piece is " I Dreamt I Dwe ...
''; ''
Maritana
''Maritana'' is a three-act opera including both spoken dialogue and some recitatives, composed by William Vincent Wallace, with a libretto by Edward Fitzball (1792–1873). The opera is based on the 1844 French play ''Don César de Bazan'' by ...
'' and others by
William Vincent Wallace
William Vincent Wallace (11 March 1812 – 12 October 1865) was an Irish composer and pianist. In his day, he was famous on three continents as a double virtuoso on violin and piano. Nowadays, he is mainly remembered as an opera composer of n ...
and several by
Julius Benedict
Sir Julius Benedict (27 November 1804 – 5 June 1885) was a German-born composer and conductor, resident in England for most of his career.
Life and music
Benedict was born in Stuttgart, the son of a Jewish banker, and in 1820 learnt compo ...
.
[Gordon-Powell, Robin. ''Ivanhoe'', full score, Introduction, vol. I, p. VII, 2008, The Amber Ring] In 1837, actor-manager
Samuel Phelps
Samuel Phelps (born 13 February 1804, Plymouth Dock (now Devonport), Plymouth, Devon, died 6 November 1878, Anson's Farm, Coopersale, near Epping, Essex) was an English actor and theatre manager. He is known for his productions of William ...
(1804–1878) joined the company at Drury Lane, appearing with
William Charles Macready
William Charles Macready (3 March 179327 April 1873) was an English actor.
Life
He was born in London the son of William Macready the elder, and actress Christina Ann Birch. Educated at Rugby School where he became headboy, and where now the t ...
, the gifted actor-manager in several Shakespeare plays. He also created the role of Captain Channel in
Douglas Jerrold
Douglas William Jerrold (London 3 January 18038 June 1857 London) was an English dramatist and writer.
Biography
Jerrold's father, Samuel Jerrold, was an actor and lessee of the little theatre of Wilsby near Cranbrook in Kent. In 1807 Dougla ...
's
melodrama
A modern melodrama is a dramatic work in which the plot, typically sensationalized and for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue that is often bombastic or exces ...
, ''The Prisoner of War'' (1842), and of Lord Tresham in
Robert Browning
Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings ...
's ''A Blot in the 'Scutcheon'' (1843). Macready was briefly manager in 1841–1843, putting significant reforms in place. Nevertheless, most productions there were financial disasters.
![Sketches from the 1891 Pantomime at Drury Lane by Phil May](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Sketches_from_the_1891_Pantomime_at_Drury_Lane_by_Phil_May.jpg)
The theatrical monopoly first bestowed by Royal Letters Patent 183 years earlier was abolished by the
Theatres Act 1843
The Theatres Act 1843 (6 & 7 Vict., c. 68) (also known as the Theatre Regulation Act) is a defunct Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. It amended the regime established under the Licensing Act 1737 for the licensing of the theatre in Great B ...
, but the patent had been largely toothless for decades and this had little immediate effect. On the other hand, other theatres, used to presenting musical entertainments, continued to do so, and Drury Lane continued as one of the most accepted venues for legitimate theatre. The 19th-century run of financial and artistic failures at Drury Lane was interrupted by four plays produced over a twenty-five-year period by the actor-playwright
Dion Boucicault
Dionysius Lardner "Dion" Boucicault (né Boursiquot; 26 December 1820 – 18 September 1890) was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the ...
: ''The Queen of Spades'' (1851), ''Eugenie'' (1855), ''Formosa'' (1869), and ''
The Shaughraun
''The Shaughraun'' () is a melodramatic Play (theatre), play written by Irish people, Irish playwright Dion Boucicault. It was first performed at Wallack's Theatre, New York City, New York, on 14 November 1874. Dion Boucicault played Conn in the ...
'' (1875). But this period of general decline culminated with
F. B. Chatterton's 1878 resignation; in his words, "Shakespeare spells ruin, and Byron bankruptcy."
During the 19th century, Drury Lane staged ballet as well, with performers including Italy's
Carlotta Grisi
Carlotta Grisi (born Caronne Adele Josephine Marie Grisi; 28 June 1819 – 20 May 1899) was an Italian ballet dancer. Born in Visinada, Istria (present-day Vižinada, Croatia). Although her parents were not involved in the theatre, she was broug ...
.
One famous musical director of Drury Lane was the eccentric French conductor and composer of light music
Louis-Antoine Jullien
Louis George Maurice Adolphe Roche Albert Abel Antonio Alexandre Noë Jean Lucien Daniel Eugène Joseph-le-brun Joseph-Barême Thomas Thomas Thomas-Thomas Pierre Arbon Pierre-Maurel Barthélemi Artus Alphonse Bertrand Dieudonné Emanuel Josué V ...
(1812–1860), who successfully invited
Berlioz to visit London and give concerts in the Theatre.
The house's fortunes rose again under the management of
Augustus Harris
Sir Augustus Henry Glossop Harris (18 March 1852 – 22 June 1896) was a British actor, impresario, and dramatist, a dominant figure in the West End theatre of the 1880s and 1890s.
Born into a theatrical family, Harris briefly pursued a comme ...
from 1879. In the 1880s and 1890s, the theatre hosted many of the productions of the
Carl Rosa Opera Company
The Carl Rosa Opera Company was founded in 1873 by Carl Rosa, a German-born musical impresario, and his wife, British operatic soprano Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa to present opera in English in London and the British provinces. The company premiere ...
. Harris focused increased resources on the theatre's annual
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 ...
, beginning at Christmas 1888, adding a well-known comedian,
Dan Leno
George Wild Galvin (20 December 1860 – 31 October 1904), better known by the stage name Dan Leno, was a leading English music hall comedian and musical theatre actor during the late Victorian era. He was best known, aside from his music hall ...
. These spectacular Christmas shows were a major success, often playing into March. They were choreographed by the theatre's dance master,
John D'Auban
Frederick John D'Auban (1842 – 15 April 1922) was an English dancer, choreographer and actor of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Famous during his lifetime as the ballet-master at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, he is best remembered as the c ...
. Many of the designs under Harris were created by the imaginative designer
C. Wilhelm
William John Charles Pitcher (21 March 1858 – 2 March 1925), known as Wilhelm or C. Wilhelm, was an English artist, costume and scenery designer, best known for his designs for ballets, pantomimes, comic operas and Edwardian musical comedies.
...
, including the spectacular drama, ''Armada'' (1888), and many of the pantomimes. Productions relying on spectacle became the norm at Drury Lane under the managements first of Harris, from 1879 to 1896, and then of
Arthur Collins from 1896 to 1923.
Examples include the 1909 play, ''
The Whip'', which featured not only a train crash, but also twelve horses recreating the
2,000 Guineas Stakes
The 2000 Guineas Stakes is a Group 1 flat race in Great Britain open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies. It is run on the Rowley Mile at Newmarket over a distance of 1 mile (1,609 metres) and scheduled to take place each year at ...
on an on-stage treadmill.
Jimmy Glover
James Mackey Glover (18 June 1861 – 8 September 1931), originally James Mackey, and known as Jimmy Glover, was an Irish composer, conductor, music critic, and journalist, most notable as Director of Music and conductor at the Theatre Royal, Drur ...
, Director of Music from 1893 to 1923, was a significant figure at the theatre during the Collins years and wrote books which record much more than its musical life.
Interior renovation (1922)
In 1922, under the ownership of managing director
Sir Alfred Butt, the theatre underwent its last major interior renovation of the 20th century.
At a cost of £150,000,
['The Theatre Royal: Management', ''Survey of London: volume 35: The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden'' (1970), pp. 9–29. URL: ] it became a four-tiered theatre able to seat just over 2,000 people. It was decorated with one of the most notable interiors produced by the specialist ornamental plasterwork company of
Clark and Fenn. Composer and performer
Ivor Novello, immensely popular in his time though little-remembered today, presented his musicals in Drury Lane from 1931 to 1939.
The theatre was closed in 1939 because of the outbreak of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. During the war, it served as the headquarters for the
Entertainments National Service Association
The Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) was an organisation established in 1939 by Basil Dean and Leslie Henson to provide entertainment for British armed forces personnel during World War II. ENSA operated as part of the Navy, ...
, sustaining some minor bomb damage. It reopened in 1946 with
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time'' magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and ...
's ''
Pacific 1860
''Pacific 1860'' is a musical written by Noël Coward. The story is set in a fictional Pacific British Colony during the reign of Queen Victoria. It involves a romantic and sentimental story about a visiting Prima Donna and her conflict betwe ...
''.
The building was
Grade I listed
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
in February 1958.
In 2000, Theatre Royal Drury Lane was purchased by
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber (born 22 March 1948), is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 21 musicals, ...
.
, it has been owned and managed by LW Theatres, Lloyd Webber's management company. The seating plan for the theatre remains the same and the auditorium is still one of the largest in
London's West End
The West End of London (commonly referred to as the West End) is a district of Central London, west of the City of London and north of the River Thames, in which many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buil ...
. It is one of the 40 theatres featured in the 2012 DVD documentary series ''
Great West End Theatres
''Great West End Theatres'' is a documentary series detailing the history, architecture and theatrical anecdotes of the 40 West End Theatres of London (as covered by the monthly Society of London Theatre list), released individually as All-Regi ...
'', presented by
Donald Sinden
Sir Donald Alfred Sinden (9 October 1923 – 12 September 2014) was a British actor.
Sinden featured in the film ''Mogambo'' (1953), and achieved early fame as a Rank Organisation film star in the 1950s in films including ''The Cruel Sea (195 ...
.
350th anniversary renovation (2013)
On 15 May 2013, Lloyd Webber revealed a £4 million restoration of the theatre to mark its 350th anniversary.
[ Using a team of specialists, the detailed restoration has returned the public areas of the Rotunda, Royal Staircases and Grand Saloon, all of which were part of the 1810 theatre, to their original Regency style.][Everett, Lucinda]
"Andrew Lloyd Webber reveals £4m restoration of Drury Lane's Theatre Royal"
, ''The Telegraph'', 15 May 2013, retrieved 22 September 2014.
Major productions of the 20th and 21st centuries
Four of Rodgers and Hammerstein
Rodgers and Hammerstein was a theater-writing team of composer Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) and lyricist-dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960), who together created a series of innovative and influential American musicals. Their popu ...
's musicals made their London debuts in Drury Lane, holding the stage almost continuously for nearly a decade, including ''Oklahoma!
''Oklahoma!'' is the first musical theater, musical written by the duo of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, ''Green Grow the Lilacs (play), Green Grow the Lilacs''. Set in farm country outside the town of ...
'' (1947–1950),[The show transferred in 1950 to the Stoll Theatre to finish its long run. ] ''Carousel
A carousel or carrousel (mainly North American English), merry-go-round (List of sovereign states, international), roundabout (British English), or hurdy-gurdy (an old term in Australian English, in South Australia, SA) is a type of amusement ...
'' (1950–1951), '' South Pacific'' (1951–1953) and ''The King and I
''The King and I'' is the fifth musical by the team of Rodgers and Hammerstein. It is based on Margaret Landon's novel '' Anna and the King of Siam'' (1944), which is in turn derived from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, governess to the childre ...
'' (1953–1956). American imports also included Lerner and Loewe
Lerner and Loewe refers to the partnership between lyricist and librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe.Kenny, Ellen, and James M. Salem. “A Guide to Critical Reviews, Part II: The Musical from Rodgers-and-Hart to Lerner-and-Loe ...
's ''My Fair Lady
''My Fair Lady'' is a musical based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play ''Pygmalion'', with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons f ...
'', which began a five-year run in 1958. Productions in the 1960s included ''Camelot
Camelot is a castle and court associated with the legendary King Arthur. Absent in the early Arthurian material, Camelot first appeared in 12th-century French romances and, since the Lancelot-Grail cycle, eventually came to be described as the ...
'' (1964–1965), '' Hello, Dolly!'' (1965–1967) and '' The Great Waltz'' (1970–1972). In 1974, Monty Python
Monty Python (also collectively known as the Pythons) were a British comedy troupe who created the sketch comedy television show '' Monty Python's Flying Circus'', which first aired on the BBC in 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four ...
recorded an album at the theatre, ''Live at Drury Lane
''Monty Python Live at Drury Lane'' is a live album released by Monty Python in 1974. It was recorded on the final night of their four-week run at the Drury Lane Theatre in London earlier that year and edited onto disc with new studio linking ...
''.
Later long runs at the theatre include productions of ''A Chorus Line
''A Chorus Line'' is a 1975 musical with music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban, and a book by James Kirkwood Jr. and Nicholas Dante.
Set on the bare stage of a Broadway theater, the musical is centered on seventeen Broadway dancers ...
'' (1976–1979), '' 42nd Street'' (1984–1989), ''Miss Saigon
''Miss Saigon'' is a stage musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby Jr. It is based on Giacomo Puccini's 1904 opera ''Madame Butterfly'', and similarly tells the tragic tale of a doomed rom ...
'' (1989–1999, the theatre's longest-running show), '' The Producers'' (2004–2007), ''The Lord of the Rings
''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...
'' (2007–2008), ''Oliver!
''Oliver!'' is a coming-of-age stage musical, with book, music and lyrics by Lionel Bart. The musical is based upon the 1838 novel '' Oliver Twist'' by Charles Dickens.
It premiered at the Wimbledon Theatre, southwest London in 1960 before op ...
'' (2009–2011) and ''Shrek The Musical
''Shrek The Musical'' is a musical with music by Jeanine Tesori and book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire. It is based on the 2001 DreamWorks Animation film ''Shrek'', along with elements of its sequels: '' Shrek 2'', ''Shrek Forever After'' ...
'' (2011–2013). '' Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the Musical'' played from 2013 through January 2017.
Notable productions since 1919 have included:
Hauntings
The author Tom Ogden calls the Theatre Royal one of the world's most haunted theatres. The appearance of almost any one of the handful of ghosts that are said to frequent the theatre signals good luck for an actor or production. The most famous ghost is the "Man in Grey", who appears dressed as a nobleman of the late 18th century: powdered hair beneath a tricorne
The tricorne or tricorn is a style of hat that was popular during the 18th century, falling out of style by 1800, though actually not called a "tricorne" until the mid-19th century. During the 18th century, hats of this general style were referr ...
hat, a dress jacket and cloak or cape, riding boots and a sword. Legend says that the Man in Grey is the ghost of a knife-stabbed man whose skeletal remains were found within a walled-up side passage in 1848. Various people have reported seeing the ghost, including W. J. MacQueen-Pope
Walter James MacQueen-Pope (11 April 1888 – 27 June 1960), known familiarly as Popie, was an English theatre historian and publicist. From a theatrical family which could be traced back to contemporaries of Shakespeare, he was in management for ...
, who described its usual path as starting at the end of the fourth row in the upper circle and then proceeding via the rear gangway to the wall near the royal box, where the remains were found.
The ghosts of actor Charles Macklin
Charles Macklin (26 September 1699 – 11 July 1797), (Gaelic: Cathal MacLochlainn, English: Charles McLaughlin), was an Irish actor and dramatist who performed extensively at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Macklin revolutionised theatre in ...
and clown Joseph Grimaldi
Joseph Grimaldi (18 December 1778 – 31 May 1837) was an English actor, comedian and dancer, who became the most popular English entertainer of the Regency era.Byrne, Eugene"The patient" Historyextra.com, 13 April 2012 In the early 1800s, ...
are also supposed to haunt the theatre. Macklin appears backstage, wandering the corridor which now stands in the spot where, in 1735, he killed fellow actor Thomas Hallam in an argument over a wig ("Goddamn you for a blackguard, scrub, rascal!" he shouted, thrusting a cane into Hallam's face and piercing his left eye). Grimaldi is reported to be a helpful apparition, purportedly guiding nervous actors skilfully about the stage on more than one occasion. The comedian Stanley Lupino said he had seen the ghost of Dan Leno in a dressing room.[Donati, William ''Ida Lupino'' University Press of Kentucky 2000 p.1]
Google Books
See also
*European Route of Historic Theatres The European Route of Historic Theatres is a holiday route and European Cultural Route, that runs through many European countries. It links cities with important historic theatres from the 16th to 19th centuries.
This cultural route was initiated b ...
* Rose Theatre
References
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West End theatres
1663 establishments in England
Buildings and structures demolished in 1791
Commercial buildings completed in 1812
Christopher Wren buildings in London
Grade I listed buildings in the City of Westminster
Grade I listed theatres
Theatres in the City of Westminster
Reportedly haunted locations in London
Covent Garden
Georgian architecture in London
Theatres completed in 1663
Theatres completed in 1674
Theatres completed in 1794
Theatres completed in 1812
Rebuilt buildings and structures in the United Kingdom