Old Red Lion Theatre
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| Old Red Lion Theatre, May 2007 | |
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| Address |
418 St John Street
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| City | |
| Country |  United Kingdom |
| Capacity | 60 |
| Type | fringe theatre |
| Opened | 1979 |
| www.oldredliontheatre.co.uk | |
| Coordinates: | |
The Old Red Lion Theatre is a fringe theatre, situated above a pub at The Angel, in the London Borough of Islington.
It was founded in 1979 as the Old Red Lion Theatre Club.
[edit] Awards
Old Red Lion Theatre won the Dan Crawford Pub Theatre Award for 2006
The Old Red Lion, which was first built in 1415, is one of London’s most ancient taverns, and in its early days it was situated amongst open fields. The only neighbouring building at that time was a house called Goose Farm, and nearby were a number of cattle pens in which cows were herded before being taken to Smithfield Market.
Islington was then a rural village within walking distance from the City, and St. John Street was a country lane known as Chester Road. Towards the end of the 18th century the road became infested with highwaymen, and patrols were employed to protect travellers passing through Islington after nightfall.
In the late Georgian era, the Old Red Lion was described as a small brick house with three trees in its forecourt, and it was in the shade of these trees that Thomas Paine wrote ‘The Rights of Man’, a radical attack on established religion.
During the same century the tavern was also visited by numerous other authors and artists, including Samuel Johnson and William Hogarth. In Hogarth’s famous painting entitled ‘Evening’, the tavern appears in the middle distance, with Sadlers Wells in the foreground.
When the Old Red Lion was rebuilt in 1899, it was given a pair of exits, each of which emerged on a different street, and the pub became known as the ‘In and Out’ because cab passengers sometimes used to avoid paying their fare by entering the pub at one door and disappearing through the other.
The present day pub is known as the Old Red Lion Theatre Pub which houses a small studio theatre on the first floor that has played host to some of Britain’s most exciting theatrical talent since it was founded in 1979. The ORL, or Old Red, as it is affectionately known, is now an established place for actors, writers, directors and technicians to experiment and thrive with their art.
The modern pub is a unique and congenial mix of traditional pub values, friends old and new, creative talent and excellent hand-drawn cask ales from London and East Anglia. The pub’s hosts are the Devine’s who welcome you to an amazing tradition that has endured beyond five centuries.
[edit] External links
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