Former Festival Theatre, Cambridge Geograph-2593449-by-Keith-Edkins

The Theatre Royal was built in the Barnwell suburb of

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, England, in 1816. It closed later that century but reopened as the Cambridge Festival Theatre from 1926 until 1935. The building, in which part of the interior of the theatre survives, is Grade II* listed.

19th century

In the mid-18th century, Cambridge's main source of theatrical performances came from travelling companies, including the

Norwich Company of Comedians The Norwich Company of Comedians was an acting company based in Norwich, East Anglia, during the 18th and 19th centuries. They used to perform on what was known as the Norwich Theatre Circuit, which consisted of an annual tour of six theatres. The ...

, that would perform on Stourbridge Common at the

Stourbridge Fair Stourbridge fair was an annual fair held on Stourbridge Common in Cambridge, England. At its peak it was the largest fair in Europe and was the inspiration for Bunyan's "Vanity Fair". The fair was one of four important medieval fairs held in C ...

for three weeks each autumn. As a result, three theatres were built in Barnwell in succession, but Cambridge lacked a permanent theatre. William Wilkins (1751–1815), a building contractor, was proprietor of a chain of theatres in East Anglia known as the Norwich Theatre Circuit. Wilkins and his son, also

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

(1778–1839), built a theatre in 1807 at Sun Street, Barnwell. The younger Wilkins, responsible for

Downing College Downing College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge and currently has around 650 students. Founded in 1800, it was the only college to be added to Cambridge University between 1596 and 1869, and is often described as the olde ...

and London's

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...

during his career, designed a new theatre nearby to replace the 1807 building. The building is on the south side of the Newmarket Road in the northeastern Cambridge suburb of Barnwell. Completed in 1816, the theatre was sited outside the boundary of the town owing to prohibition of theatrical entertainment by the

University A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

authorities (a 1737 act "for the More Effectual Preventing the Unlawful Playing of Interludes within the Precincts of the Two Universities ..." forbade the performance of all plays and operas within five miles of the town). On his father's death in 1815, Wilkins inherited the leases of the new site and six other theatres – Norwich, Bury St Edmunds, Colchester, Yarmouth, Ipswich and King's Lynn – and continued to run them. Proprietorship passed to his son, W Bushby Wilkins, and a succession of lessees, but the Norwich circuit declined, despite hosting readings by

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...

. The theatre closed in 1878 and became a nonconformist chapel.

Cambridge Festival Theatre

Terence Gray Terence James Stannus Gray (14 September 1895 – 5 January 1986), was a theatre producer who created the Cambridge Festival Theatre as an experimental theatre in Cambridge. He produced over 100 plays there between 1926 and 1933. Later in l ...

(1895–1986) leased the building in 1926 and reopened it as the Cambridge Festival Theatre. The alleyway between the street and the building was enclosed to form a foyer. The interior was modernised, with the

proscenium A proscenium ( grc-gre, προσκήνιον, ) is the metaphorical vertical plane of space in a theatre, usually surrounded on the top and sides by a physical proscenium arch (whether or not truly "arched") and on the bottom by the stage floor ...

arch widened by the removal of the private boxes, and the introduction of electric lighting, a brick cyclorama and an early example of a revolving stage. The theatre was the country's "first permanent indoor performing space to be based on the design of a Greek open-air theatre". The 'Festival' name reflected Grey's intention (unfulfilled) to promote summer festivals. The opening production on 22 November 1926 was ''

Oresteia The ''Oresteia'' ( grc, Ὀρέστεια) is a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus in the 5th century BCE, concerning the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, the murder of Clytemnestra by Orestes, the trial of Orestes, the end o ...

'', with choreography by

Ninette de Valois Dame Ninette de Valois (born Edris Stannus; 6 June 1898 – 8 March 2001) was an Irish-born British dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director of classical ballet. Most notably, she danced professionally with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Ru ...

. Gray retired from the theatre in 1933 and wrote on

Taoism Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmony with the '' Ta ...

under the pseudonym "Wei Wu Wei". Norman Marshall worked at the theatre from 1926 and was its director from 1932 to 1933. From 1927,

Joseph Macleod Joseph Todd Gordon Macleod (1903–1984) was a British poet, actor, playwright, theatre director, theatre historian and BBC newsreader. He also published poetry under the pseudonym Adam Drinan. Biography Macleod was the son of Scottish paren ...

was an actor and producer at the theatre, and in 1933 he became the theatre's director and lessee. Five of Macleod's plays were staged there, including ''Overture to Cambridge'' (1933) and ''A Woman Turned to Stone'' (1934). Under Macleod, the theatre became known for avant-garde productions, and the staging of lesser known works by major playwrights. Macleod staged some of

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

's Noh plays, and also some

Ibsen Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playw ...

and

Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; 29 January 1860 Old Style date 17 January. – 15 July 1904 Old Style date 2 July.) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career ...

(his company, The Cambridge Festival Players, was one of the first in the UK to stage Chekhov's play ''

The Seagull ''The Seagull'' ( rus, Ча́йка, r=Cháyka, links=no) is a play by Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov, written in 1895 and first produced in 1896. ''The Seagull'' is generally considered to be the first of his four major plays. It dramatises ...

''). The theatre was obliged to close due to financial difficulties in June 1935. The building was recorded as

Grade II* 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 I ...

in 1950. From 1962, it was used by the

Arts Theatre The Arts Theatre is a theatre in Great Newport Street, in Westminster, Central London. History It opened on 20 April 1927 as a members-only club for the performance of unlicensed plays, thus avoiding theatre censorship by the Lord Chamber ...

as a workshop and store.

Today

Cambridge Buddhist Centre, Newmarket Road

The building is in use as a

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

centre.

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked w ...

describe the interior as "a virtually complete example of a Georgian theatre with a three-tiered horseshoe auditorium with the galleries supported on cast iron columns." and state that a painting of the Royal Arms remains above the

References

External links

Visit to the theatre, 2016

– archived on 9 January 2014 {{Authority control Theatres completed in 1816 Theatres in Cambridge Grade II* listed buildings in Cambridge Grade II* listed theatres