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Royal Panopticon of Science and Art / Alhambra Theatre / Odeon Leicester Square, Leicester Square and 23 Charing Cross Road

Other Leicester Square Theatres and Cinemas

Above - The Odeon Leicester Square in December 2008, the Cinema was built on the site of the former Alhambra Theatre and Royal Panopticon of Science and Art - Photo M.L.

The first building of entertainment on the site of the present Odeon Cinema, Leicester Square was the Royal Panopticon of Science and Art which opened on the 18th of March 1854 and closed just two years later in 1856. The building was then converted into the Alhambra Palace and a Circus Ring was installed, opening on the 3rd of April 1858.

In 1860 this building was again converted, this time into a Music Hall, by adding a proscenium arch and a stage, and opened as the Alhambra Palace Music Hall on the 10th of December 1860.

With a new license in 1871 the Theatre was able to produce Drama and reopened on the 24th of April that year as the Royal Alhambra Palace of Varieties. Many changes of name followed, the first being the Royal Alhambra Theatre on the 20th of May 1872. Other names were the Royal Alhambra Palace, the Alhambra Theatre, the Alhambra Theatre Royal, and the Theatre Royal Alhambra. The Theatre was furthur altered in 1881 and reopened on the 3rd of December that year as the Alhambra Theatre. This Theatre was destroyed by fire on the 7th of December 1882.

Left - The Odeon Leicester Square, decked out in a temporary red facade in April 2009.

After a complete rebuild a new Theatre opened in its place on the 3rd of December 1883 as the Alhambra Theatre Royal with a production of 'The Golden Ring.' The following year the building was renamed the Alhambra Theatre of Varieties and reopened as a Music Hall on the 18th of October 1884. A second entrance was built for the Theatre in Charing Cross Road in 1897.

The Alhambra Theatre finally closed its doors for the last time on the 1st of September 1936 and was subsequently demolished. A new Cinema with stage facilities, the Odeon, Leicester Square, arose in its place and opened on the 2nd of November 1937 with the film 'The Prisoner of Zenda.'

Arthur Lloyd is known to have performed at the Alhambra Theatre in 1886 and 1892

See also this Programme for Arthur Lloyd at The Alhambra in 1886

Also see this page about the Alhambra Theatre in the June 2002 Special feature...

More detailed information on all the various buildings on the site of the present Odeon Cinema, Leicester Square follows...

The space on the east side of Leicester Square, long vacant, is now being covered with a building, as our readers have already heard, for the Panopticon of Science and Art, and in our present number we give a view and plan of the intended structure.

Above - Plan of the Panopticon - From 'The Builder' Vol 9, December 1851

The objects which it is the intention of the council of this institution to carry out are principally the promotion of science and the useful arts, by the means of popular lectures, and the illustration of history and literature by pictorial views and representations, to be accompanied by music. In addition, however to these attractions, the Panopticon, it is said, is to afford the opportunity of observing, in all their varied ramifications, the industrial and mechanical arts, from the first state of the raw material up to the most highly-finished stage of perfection. The council propose to secure in all respects the most efficient auxiliaries, both as regard music and science; and the orchestral instrument which is now in process of construction by Messrs. Wm. Hill and Co., will. it is stated, be second to none in the metropolis, while the scientific apparatus will embrace among other novelties, a stupendous electrical machine, with a glut plate of 10 feet diameter, which it is proposed to work by means of a steam engine.

Right - Another article on the proposed Panopticon - From 'The Builder' Vol 8, 1850

An important feature in the intended arrangements of the Institution is a plan whereby a great impediment to the success of Mechanics' Institutes, particularly in the country, may be removed: it has been found that the funds of such societies are seldom sufficient to procure the requisite apparatus for the illustration of their lectures, which are consequently divested of much of their interest, and in order to obviate this difficulty the council of the Panopticon propose to form a large collection of apparatus, suitable for lectures in every branch of natural and experimental science, which will be lent out on hire upon moderate terms.

It is proposed to have two daily exhibitions, one in the morning devoted more especially to scientific information and research, while the evening entertainments will partake of a lighter and more amusing character.

The plan of the building, which was designed and is being carried out by Messrs. Finden and Lewis, comprehends a grand central hall, 97 feet diameter, domed over for the exhibitions of machinery, manufactures, works of art &c., and for exhibitions of various descriptions. There will be a lecture room, laboratory, &c. All the buildings are designed in the Saracenic style, after models and details, chiefly from the existing remains at Cairo. The contour of the dome is taken from a daguerreotype of a dome at Cairo. It will he formed of glue and iron on the ridge and furrow principle. The facade will he formed in cement.

Te Builder - Volume 9 - December 1851.

The Alhambra Theatre

Above - Postcard showing the Alhambra Theatre, Leicester Square and also to the left the Empire Theatre.

The Alhambra Theatre Leicester Square was converted from a former building of entertainment, The Royal Panopticon of Science and Art. The Odeon Leicester Square now stands on the site.

Above - Early 20th century postcard of Leicester Square showing the Empire Theatre (top left) and the Alhambra Theatre (far right).

Alhambra Theatre, Leicester-square, originally the Panopticon, a rival institution to the Polytechnic, then altered into a music-hall, and finally licensed as a theatre.

Right - Click for a review from Punch for the Alhambra Theatre in Jan 1873

Comic operas of the broader type are here given in English, the low comedy element being usually developed to the utmost extent. The specialty of the performance, however, is ballet and spectacle, in the mounting of which no expense is spared. The band is large and good. The house is spacious.

Left - Alhambra Programme for 1873. The cast includes Kate Santley and Rose Bell who were to have an extraordinary falling out in 1874 while appearing at the Alhambra - Courtesy Leon A. Perdoni. - Click to see entire programme.

Right - An Alhambra programme for 1897 Courtesy John Moffatt - Click to see the entire programme.

All the best portion of the floor is allotted to stalls, which occupy a square space from the orchestra very nearly to the line of the boxes; the pit, which is not much more than a promenade, skirting it-on the three sides; an entrance being obtained through a recently constructed passage which passes along the right hand side of the promenade from the private box entrance.

The pit and promenade run back under the box tiers, the lowest of which is occupied entirely with private boxes, having a separate entrance in the extreme southern corner of the façade. Above these comes the dress circle, which communicates with the large refreshment saloon, in which smoking is allowed. NEAREST Railway Stations, Charing Cross (Dist. & S.E.); Omnibus Routes, Regent-street, Piccadilly, St. Martin’s-lane, Strand.

Above text from Charles Dickens's (Jr.), Dickens' Dictionary of London, 1879

Above - Postcard showing the Alhambra Theatre Leicester Square,
and also top left - The London Hippodrome.

Above - The Alhambra Theatre Auditorium from the Illustrated London News April 24th 1858

Above - Front cover and first page from a Programme for 'Paquita' at the Alhambra Theatre October 12th 1908 showing both the Leicester Square and Charing Cross Road frontages of the Alhambra Theatre
Courtesy John Moffatt.

'LONDON. The Alhambra Theatre destroyed by fire. No victims.’ That was the startling announcement which I read in the telegraphic intelligence of the Fanfulla. But, respected Fanfulla, many scores of’ victims’ must necessarily be made through the burning down of the great theatre in Leicester Square. It is towards Christmas-time that ‘ the ants behind the baize’ are most laboriously busy. Scene-painters and scene-shifters, stage carpenters and property men, supernumeraries, ballet-girls, and ‘extras’ are all toiling and moilng night and day, with the intent of diverting you and your children at Christmas-time; and all for a little bit of bread. The burning down of a great theatre means not only the throwing out of employment of a great tribe of industrious and harmless folk, but the destruction of workmen’s tools and the dresses of poor young women, and the spreading far and wide of misery and destitution.

Right - The charing Cross Road entrance to the Alhambra Theatre.

But there is no calling more thoroughly and spontaneously charitable than the theatrical one; and if there are any victims in purse through the burning of the Alhambra, they will be helped at once, I hope and believe.
The house has had a strange history. I mind it when it was ‘a place with a Greek name,’ as Cobbett used to say of Exeter Hall - a ‘Panopticon,’ or something of that kind, of Science and Art, started under illustrious auspices, which turned out a dead failure. I mind it as a circus, under the lesseeship of the late indefatigable E. T. Smith, and as an arena for Mr. Rarey’s exhibition of horse-taming every stage in which process is represented on a repousse vase more than two thousand years old, found in the tomb of one of the ancient Scythian kings, which is now in the Kertch Museum of the Palace of the Hermitage at St. Petersburg. And I think that I once attended a revivalist service at the Alhambra. Its career as a Music Hall, and its disestablishment as such at the hands of the Middlesex magistrates, are matters of more recent history.

Left - A 1960s Office Building, Alhambra House, stands where the Alhambra Theatre's charing Cross road entrance once was. Photo M.L.

Above text - George Augustus Sala 'Living London 1882'

Note: The Alhambra was re-built and re-opened by Charles Morton again in 1884

Above - Programme for 'Ballets De Monte-Carlo' including 'Le Lac des Cynges', 'Carnaval', 'Aubade' and 'Prince Igor"' at the Alhambra Theatre for the week of June the 8th to the 13th, 1936. - Courtesy Dominic Holzapfel.

The Royal Panopticon was intended to serve as an institute for scientific exhibitions and for promoting discoveries in the arts and manufacturing. When built on the east side of Leicester Square in the early 1850s, the Panopticon had a frontage of 104 feet with a Moorish style out of character with the neighborhood. The facility was opened in 1854, had limited financial success, and was sold in 1857 for conversion to the Alhambra Music Hall.

No place of amusement has passed through so many convulsions as the edifice now known as the Alhambra. Erected in the sixties, it began life as a species of polytechnic, where it was hoped that the instruction afforded by the contemplation of two electric batteries and a diving bell, in conjunction with the exhilarating air of the neighborhood, would attract sufficient audiences to meet rent and expenses; but the venture not having fulfilled the expectations of its youth, its portals were closed,and it next came into prominence during the Franco-German war.

Left - Variety Programme for the Alhambra Theatre December 26th 1911 - Courtesy John Moffatt.

Here "patriotic songs" were the piece de resistance, and towards 11 o'clock a dense throng waved flags and cheered and hooted indiscriminately the "Marseillaise," the "Wacht am Rhein" and everything and everybody. Jones, calmly smoking, would, without the slightest provocation, assault Brown, who was similarly innocently occupied, and who in turn resented the polite distinction. Stand-up fights took place nightly, and as was anticipated, drew all London to the Alhambra towards 11 o'clock.
These indiscriminate nightly riots attracted, as may be assumed, all the bullies and sharpers in London, amongst whom stands prominently the "Kangaroo", a gigantic black, who was known to everybody in the sixties. This ruffian, who was admittedly an expert pugilis, was the biggest coward that hovered round Piccadilly. No place was free from his unwelcome visits, and his ubiquity showed itself by his nightly appearance at the Pavilion, the Alhambra, the Cafe Riche, Barnes's, the "Pic", the Blue Posts, the Argyll, and Cremorne. From such places as Evan's and Mott's he was absolutely barred, and the moral effect of the reception he would have received deterred him - in his wisdom - from making the attempt. His modus operandi was simplicity itself; seating himself at some inoffensive man's table, he helped himself to anything he might find within reach; if remonstrated with, he knocked the remonstrator down, and coolly walked out the room. On other occasions he would demand money and if refused, applied the same remedy; if a party were seated at the Alhambra watching the performance, a black arm would suddenly appear over one's shoulder, and glass by glass was lifted and coolly drained. Occasionally he met his match, when, having pocketed his thrashing, he commenced afresh in an adjoining night-house.

Above text from - 'One of the Old Brigade' (Donald Shaw), London in the Sixties, 1908

Right - Alhambra Theatre Demolition 1936 and Odeon construction 1937 - From the Website of the Cinema Theatre Association.

Above - The Odeon Leicester Square on the site of the former Alhambra Theatre and Royal Panopticon of Science and Art - Photo M.L. 2005

Index to other Theatres and Cinemas in London's Leicester Square