Gaiety Theatre, London

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The Gaiety Theatre, London was a West End theatre in the City of Westminster, located on Aldwych at the eastern end of the Strand. The theatre was established as the Strand Music Hall, in 1864. It was rebuilt several times, but closed from the start of World War II in 1939 and never reopened, having suffered bomb damage during the hostilities. The theatre, at first known for music hall and burlesque, played a key role in the development of modern musical comedy in the late Victorian era.

1 Beginnings
2 Hollingshead and Edwardes
3 The New Gaiety Theatre
4 Later years and demise
5 Notes
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Beginnings

The theatre was financed by a joint stock company and built in 1864 as the Strand Music Hall by Bassett and Keeling. This large theatre with over 2,000 seats^[1] was built at a time when many new theatres were being built in London.^[2] While known as a music hall, the proprietors decided to ban smoking and drinking within the hall, and these activities were accommodated in the adjacent saloons.^[1] A novel gas lighting system was incorporated in the hall, using prisms and mirrors to create a soft light. Exhausting the heat of the gas jets drew fresh air into the building. The house was approached through an ambitious arcade, from the Strand. This was never successful and, with the theatre, was demolished to allow the building of the Aldwych.

In 1868, the theatre was rebuilt, as the Gaiety Theatre, on a nearby prominent site at the centre of the Aldwych, facing the eastern end of the Strand by the theatre architect C. J. Phipps (who also designed the Gaiety Theatre (1871) in Dublin). A restaurant operated in the building, and patrons could eat before seeing the show and then go directly to their seats without having to worry about the weather outside.

[edit] Hollingshead and Edwardes

The Gaiety Theatre opened on December 21, 1868, with Robert the Devil, by W. S. Gilbert, a burlesque of the opera Robert le Diable.^[3] It was a venue first for burlesque, variety and light comedy, under the management of John Hollingshead from 1868 to 1886, including several operettas by Wilhelm Meyer Lutz and Thespis, the first collaboration of Gilbert and Sullivan). Gilbert also wrote An Old Score for the theatre in 1870. In 1870, H. J. Byron's Uncle Dick's Darling starred a young Henry Irving. This was the last play that theatre buff Charles Dickens saw before his death. Two Dion Boucicault plays produced here in the early 1870s were Night and Morning and Led Astray. Boucicault's Don Caesar de Bazan was travestied in Byron's Little Don Caesar de Bazan.^[4] In the late 1870s, the theatre became the first to install electric lighting on its frontstage. The Forty Thieves was performed in 1880, and Aladdin in 1881. Hollingshead called himself a "licensed dealer in legs, short skirts, French adaptations, Shakespeare, taste and musical glasses^[5]". Later, the theatre became the home of musical comedies, under the management of George Edwardes.

1894 The character of William Lurcher (A Sheriff's Officer), in Dorothy, from The Sketch

Edwardes first show was Dorothy. Although Dorothy called itself a comic opera, as did most of the British musical works of the era that were neither burlesque, pantomime nor low farce, Dorothy incorporated some of the elements that U.S. duo Harrigan and Hart were using on Broadway, integrating music and dance into the story line of the comedy. Edwardes sold that production, but it went on to become the biggest hit that the musical stage had ever seen. Soon, Edwardes hired Adrian Ross, who wrote a similar piece, In Town (1892), with stylish costumes and urbane, witty banter. He engaged Ivan Caryll as resident composer and music director at the Gaiety and put Caryll together with the writing team of Owen Hall, Harry Greenbank, Ross and Lionel Monckton. Edwardes and this team created a series of musical shows similar to Dorothy, but taking its lighter, breezier style a step further. These shows featured fashionable characters, tuneful music, romantic lyrics, witty banter and pretty dancing. The success of the first of these, A Gaiety Girl (1893), which played at other theatres, confirmed Edwardes on the path he was taking.

c.1890 Gaiety Girls

For the next two decades, the "girl" musicals packed the Gaiety Theatre, including titles like The Shop Girl (1894), The Circus Girl (1896), and A Runaway Girl (1898). These musicals were imitated at other theatres. A particular attraction of the Gaiety shows was the beautiful, dancing Gaiety Girls. These were fashionable, elegant young ladies, unlike the corseted actresses from the burlesques. Gaiety girls were polite, well-behaved young women, who were much sought after by the "stage door johnnies" of the 1890s--some of them becoming popular actresses or marrying into society and even the nobility. Edwardes arranged with Romano's restaurant, on the Strand, for his girls to dine there at half-price. It was good exposure for the girls and made Romano's the centre of London's night-life.^[5]

[edit] The New Gaiety Theatre

The building was demolished in 1903 as part of the road widening of the East Strand and the new Aldwych-Kingsway road development, and Edwardes quickly built the New Gaiety Theatre at the corner of Aldwych and The Strand. The Orchid (1903) opened the new theatre, followed by The Spring Chicken (1905), The Girls of Gottenberg (1907), Our Miss Gibbs (1909), Peggy (1911), The Sunshine Girl (1912), The Girl on the Film (1913), Adele (1914), and After the Girl (1914). Perhaps to balance the "girl" musicals for which the Gaiety was famous, Edwardes also presented a series of "boy"-themed musicals, such as The Messenger Boy (1900), The Toreador (1901, which introduced Gertie Millar), Two Naughty Boys (1906), The New Aladdin (1906), Havana (1908), Tonight's the Night (1915), and Theodore & Co (1916). Many of these popular musicals toured after their runs at the Gaity, both in the British provinces and internationally.

Edwardes died in 1915, leaving his estate indebted and the theatre (as well as Edwardes' other theatres, including Daly's Theatre), in the hands of Robert Evett, formerly a leading tenor of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. Under Evett's management, the theatre prospered with another hit, Going Up (1918), followed by The Kiss Call (1919), and Faust on Toast (1921). In 1922, Evett produced Gaiety adaptations of Catherine and The Last Waltz, a work of which he was co-author. In 1924, he produced Our Nell, the revised version of Our Peg.

[edit] Later years and demise

Musicals continued at the Gaiety. In 1929, Love Lies, by Stanley Lupino and Arthur Rigby, with music by Hal Brody and lyrics by Desmond Carter, starring Cyril Ritchard and Madge Elliott, had a successful run at the theatre. In the 1930s, the theatre played works such as Sporting Love (1934) by composer and pianist Billy Mayerl, also with Lupino, which ran for 302 performances. The last show at the theatre was the farce Running Riot, in 1939.^[5]

By 1938 the Gaiety Theatre was in need of refurbishment. However, the theatre no longer conformed to the then current licensing regulations, and so extensive modernisation was required. This was not considered to be financially viable and in 1939 the Gaiety Theatre closed. The interior fittings were stripped from the building, and sold at auction. Standing empty during World War II, the building suffered further damage as a result of bombing during air raids.

In 1946 the shell of the Gaiety Theatre was purchased by Lupino Lane for £200,000. It was the intention to rebuild the theatre and make it, once again, a centre of musical comedy. Although restoration did commence, it was found that the structural problems were worse than expected and the work discontinued. The building was once again sold, resulting in it being demolished in 1956 and replaced by an office development.

In 2006, the site of the Gaiety is once again being developed, with The Silken Hotel, a luxury hotel, being built on the land. To protect the vista of the street in which it is located, one of the walls of the old restaurant has listed building status and has been incorporated into all the subsequent development.^[6]