The Liverpool Playhouse is a theatre in

Williamson Square Williamson Square is in the city centre of Liverpool, England. It was initially laid out as a residential square in the 1745 by Mr Williamson. It originally only had buildings on the lower part and the other three parts were not covered. The L ...

in the city of

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

, England. It originated in 1866 as a

music hall Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as variety. Perceptions of a distinction in Bri ...

, and in 1911 developed into a

repertory A repertory theatre is a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation. United Kingdom Annie Horniman founded the first modern repertory theatre in Manchester after withdrawing ...

theatre. As such it nurtured the early careers of many actors and actresses, some of whom went on to achieve national and international reputations. Architectural changes have been made to the building over the years, the latest being in 1968 when a modern-style extension was added to the north of the theatre. In 1999 a trust was formed, joining the management of the Playhouse with that of the Everyman Theatre.

History

The present theatre on the site was designed by Edward Davies, and opened in 1866. It replaced an earlier theatre called the Star Concert Hall. The present theatre was originally named the Star Music Hall. In 1895 its name was changed to the Star Theatre of Varieties. The theatre was improved in 1898 by Harry Percival with a new auditorium and foyer, and electricity was installed. In 1911 the Liverpool Repertory Theatre Limited was established, with

Basil Dean Basil Herbert Dean CBE (27 September 1888 – 22 April 1978) was an English actor, writer, producer and director in the theatre and in cinema. He founded the Liverpool Repertory Company in 1911 and in the First World War, after organising unoff ...

as its "controller and producer". The company could not afford to build a new theatre, and bought the Star Theatre for £28,000 ). This made it the first

in Britain to own the

freehold Freehold may refer to: In real estate *Freehold (law), the tenure of property in fee simple *Customary freehold, a form of feudal tenure of land in England *Parson's freehold, where a Church of England rector or vicar of holds title to benefice p ...

of a theatre. The company spent a further £4,000 () on redesigning and modernising the theatre. The auditorium and the basement foyer were redesigned by Stanley Adshead, the Professor of Civic Design at the Liverpool School of Architecture. The theatre was for many years managed by

Maud Carpenter Maud Farrington OBE (; 19 March 1892 – 18 June 1967) was a British theatre manager, who was the first woman to join the board of the Liverpool Playhouse in 1945. Early years and education Born in Liverpool, Maud was the daughter of George Car ...

, while

Ronald Settle Ronald Coulter Settle (21 June 1909 – 11 July 1998) was an English composer, pianist, teacher, writer and examiner. Education Settle was born in Wirral Peninsula, Wirral, Cheshire on 21 June 1909. He was educated at the Royal Manchester Coll ...

was Musical Director from 1945 to 1971. The theatre was renamed the Liverpool Repertory Theatre, and in 1916 renamed again, as the Liverpool Playhouse. Minor structural alterations were made to the theatre in 1961 and in 1966. In 1968 a modern-style extension was added to the north of the theatre to accommodate new foyers, bars, dressing rooms and a workshop. In the 1990s the theatre company went into liquidation. In 1999 the Liverpool and Merseyside Theatres Trust Limited was established as a charity, and the theatre re-opened. It is managed jointly with the Everyman Theatre by

Liverpool City Council Liverpool City Council is the governing body for the city of Liverpool in Merseyside, England. It consists of 90 councillors, three for each of the city's 30 wards. The council is currently controlled by the Labour Party and is led by Mayor ...

Artistes

From 1922 to 1944 the director of the theatre and the repertory company was William Armstrong. According to ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'': Other future stars who learned their craft at the Playhouse under Armstrong included

Michael Redgrave Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave CBE (20 March 1908 – 21 March 1985) was an English stage and film actor, director, manager and author. He received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in ''Mourning Becomes Elect ...

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

Robert Flemyng Benjamin Arthur Flemyng (3 January 1912 – 22 May 1995), known professionally as Robert Flemyng, was a British actor. The son of a doctor, and originally intended for a medical career, Flemyng learned his stagecraft in provincial repertory th ...

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 ...

and

Gertrude Lawrence Gertrude Lawrence (4 July 1898 – 6 September 1952) was an English actress, singer, dancer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End of London and on Broadway in New York. Early life Lawrence was born Gertr ...

worked with the company as child actors. Other artistes who gained experience at the theatre include

Lilian Braithwaite Dame Florence Lilian Braithwaite, (9 March 1873 – 17 September 1948), known professionally as Lilian Braithwaite, was an English actress, primarily of the stage, although she appeared in both silent and talkie films. Early life She was born ...

Cecil Parker Cecil Parker (born Cecil Schwabe, 3 September 1897 – 20 April 1971) was an English actor with a distinctively husky voice, who usually played supporting roles, often characters with a supercilious demeanour, in his 91 films made between ...

John Gregson Harold Thomas Gregson (15 March 1919 – 8 January 1975), known professionally as John Gregson, was an English actor of stage, television and film, with 40 credited film roles. He was best known for his crime drama and comedy roles. He was cr ...

Clive Brook Clifford Hardman "Clive" Brook (1 June 1887 – 17 November 1974) was an English film actor. After making his first screen appearance in 1920, Brook emerged as a leading British actor in the early 1920s. After moving to the United States ...

C. Aubrey Smith Sir Charles Aubrey Smith (21 July 1863 – 20 December 1948) was an English Test cricketer who became a stage and film actor, acquiring a niche as the officer-and-gentleman type, as in the first sound version of ''The Prisoner of Zenda'' (1937) ...

Richard Burton Richard Burton (; born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr.; 10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was a Welsh actor. Noted for his baritone voice, Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor in the 1950s, and he gave a memorable pe ...

Patricia Routledge Dame Katherine Patricia Routledge, (; born 17 February 1929) is an English actress, singer and broadcaster. For her role as Hyacinth Bucket in the BBC sitcom ''Keeping Up Appearances'' (1990–1995), she was nominated for the BAFTA TV Award f ...

Anthony Hopkins Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins (born 31 December 1937) is a Welsh actor, director, and producer. One of Britain's most recognisable and prolific actors, he is known for his performances on the screen and stage. Hopkins has received many accolad ...

, and

Richard Briers Richard David Briers (14 January 1934 – 17 February 2013) was an English actor whose five-decade career encompassed film, radio, stage and television. Briers first came to prominence as George Starling in ''Marriage Lines'' (1961–66), but ...

Architecture

Older section

The exterior of the older part of the theatre is

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 ...

ed, and it has a

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

roof. Its entrance front faces Williamson Square. It has seven

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a narr ...

and is in three storeys. The central three bays project forward and are surmounted by a broken

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedimen ...

. On the ground floor the central bays contain three entrances, separated by pillars, which lead to a recessed porch. Over each entrance is an

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; from it, architrave "chief beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον ''epistylon'' "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can ...

containing a

fanlight A fanlight is a form of lunette window, often semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open fan. It is placed over another window or a doorway, and is sometimes hinged to a transom. Th ...

. The lateral bays contain two round-headed and one flat-headed entrance on each side, over which are three blind round windows. In the middle storey, the bays are separated by

pilaster In classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...

s. The three central bays each have a

balustrade A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...

and a window with a tympanum containing a roundel. Each of the three lateral bays contains a window with a

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

, and a round window above it. Along the top storey are

oculi An oculus (; ) is a circular opening in the center of a dome or in a wall. Originating in antiquity, it is a feature of Byzantine and Neoclassical architecture. It is also known as an '' œil-de-boeuf'' from the French, or simply a "bull's-e ...

between panelled pilasters. On the summit of each of the two lateral bays is a

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, from ...

on a short Tuscan

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 ...

. Inside the older part of the theatre are two balconies supported by

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuriti ...

columns. The interior is decorated in

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...

style.

Newer section

The newer section is constructed in concrete, and largely faced by glass. On the ground floor are entrance doors. Above this, the building is based around three cylinders. The largest of these starts at the first floor and rises through two storeys. It is

cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a canti ...

ed from a central column. To the left is a smaller cylinder, cantilevered from a separate column, interlocking with the larger cylinder. Inside the whole is a hollow column containing the stairs.

Assessment and critique

The theatre is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, an ...

as a designated Grade II*

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 ...

, having been designated on 14 March 1975. In its description, the list quotes the ''

Architects' Journal ''Architects' Journal'' is an architectural magazine published in London by Metropolis International. History The first edition was produced in 1895. Originally named ''The Builder's Journal and Architectural Record'', from 1906 to 1910 it was kn ...

'' of 1968 which says of the older section that it is "significant as an early and rare work by one of the pioneers of the Liverpool School of Architecture, in the Grecian style favoured by the school at that date", and of the newer section that it is "a brilliant concept, joyously realised, which exploits asymmetrical volumes and ever varying spaces yet achieves unity and also balance with the adjoining Victorian façade". In the ''

Buildings of England The Pevsner Architectural Guides are a series of guide books to the architecture of Great Britain and Ireland. Begun in the 1940s by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the 46 volumes of the original Buildings of England series were published b ...

'' series the architectural historians Richard Pollard and

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...

say of the newer section that it is "a spectacular composition" which creates an atmosphere of excitement and anticipation, exactly right for a theatre foyer".

References

External links

Official website of the Playhouse and Everyman theatres
{{Authority control Grade II* listed buildings in Liverpool Theatres in Liverpool Tourist attractions in Liverpool Theatres completed in 1866 Producing theatres in England 1866 establishments in England