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The Windmill Theatre, 17 - 19 Great Windmill Street, W.1 Formerly - The Palais de Luxe Cinema / Later - Windmill International
Above - The Windmill Theatre in December 2006 - Photo M.L.
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Right - A programme for 'Inquest!' the first production at the newly opened Windmill Theatre in June 1931. Click for details. The name for the Theatre came from the fact that there had once been a Windmill standing on the same site when the area was still just farmland known at the time as Windmill Fields. The Windmill itself remained until the later part of the eighteenth century. The Windmill Theatre was actually a reconstruction of an earlier Cinema on the same site which had been built in 1909 and opened as the Palais de Luxe on the 20th of December that year. The Palais de Luxe, with a capacity of around 600, was one of the first purpose built Cinemas in the West End and was designed to show the early silent films but by the 1920s it had gained in stature when it become Britain's first art house Cinema. The Cinema's fortunes came to an end by the turn of the decade however, when it found itself unable to compete with the new super cinemas being built all over London. In 1930 Laura Henderson bought the Palais de Luxe and formed a new Company, the Windmill Theatre Co, Ltd., with Bernard Isaac and J. F. Watts Phillips. Laura Henderson had the Cinema almost completely rebuilt as a Theatre. The architect for the work was F. Edward Jones who had the exterior of the building remodeled in the style of a windmill, and the interior completely restructured. The new auditorium was built on two levels, stalls and one circle, with a capacity of 322, somewhat smaller than the earlier cinema but this was because the architect had to fit a stage and working fly tower into the same space. |
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Above - The auditorium of the Windmill Theatre in its original
1930s guise as a playhouse - Courtesy the Jill |
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By December 1931 Laura Henderson announced that the Windmill was to have a change of policy and that her manager Vivian Van Damm was to use the Theatre as a variety house with non stop performances in a bid to help the failing variety profession which was under strain from the new 'talky' films around the Country. The first performance was held on the 3rd of February 1932, probably for the press, but on the 4th of February 1932 the Windmill Theatre reopened its doors to the public proper with Van Damm's new non stop variety shows, aptly named 'Revudeville.' Right - The Windmill Theatre during its Revudeville period in a photograph taken in 1958 - Courtesy Gerry Atkins.
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Left - Click to see all the Souvenir Programmes. Despite the success however, it was over a year before the Theatre began to recoup some of the money spent on the rebuilding, indeed in the first year the Company lost £20,000, a considerable sum in the early 1930s. Right - The movie star George Raft sitting with Windmill Girl Jill Anstey on the dressing room stairs at the Windmill Theatre in 1948. Raft was taking a break in London before heading for North Africa to make a Foreign Legion film. The back of the photo carries a note saying 'Touring London he absorbed the atmosphere that has made him what he is.' - Photo Courtesy Jill Millard Shapiro. Of course, as is well known today, the success of Revudeville was not really down to the non stop variety at all, or even the scores of comedians and other acts who performed for the mostly distracted male audience, many of whom would go on to become household names in the future, but because of the Windmill Girls themselves, who would appear in nude tableaux throughout the performances, even though they would have to remain absolutely still for the entire time because of licensing restrictions. Should they have moved a muscle then the Theatre would have been closed down. |
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Above - Two of the Windmill Girls, Vicki Emra and Beryl Catlin, take a break on the roof of the Windmill Theatre - Courtesy Jill Millard Shapiro. |
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Left - A Programme for the Windmill Theatre's Revudeville, here being staged at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith during the management of Nigel Playfair in 1932 - Courtesy Maurice Poole.
Right - In February 1937 The Windmill Theatre Revudeville programmes were carrying this add for the Revudeville Pot-Pourri at the Piccadilly Theatre - Courtesy Maurice Poole. The above mentioned Tour began on the 26th of December 1932 and ran for just 4 weeks, and the Piccadilly Theatre production was staged in February 1937. Neither of these ventures were particularly successful however, despite the continued success at the Windmill. Vivian Van Damm wrote an article about this tour in a Windmill Theatre programme of 1932 which reads:
Left - Revudeville and Vulgarity - An Article by Vivian Van Damm - From a Windmill Theatre Programme of 1932. - Click to Read.
Right - A souvenir programme celebrating 25 years of Revudeville at the Windmill Theatre on Monday February 4th 1957 - Courtesy Maurice Poole. This production will be on the same lines as the present show we give here but with entirely different numbers and if you and your friends happen to be in that neighbourhood and want to have an hour or so of delightful entertainment, I can do no better than recommend you look to the Lyric, Hammersmith and see what we can do when we go out for a big show. The Lyric, of course, is a much larger theatre than the Windmill, and the show will naturally be on a bigger scale.' Text in quotes by Vivian Van Damm - From a Windmill Theatre Programme of 1932 - Courtesy Maurice Poole. |
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Above - One of the Windmill Girls, Jill Millard, poses outside the Windmill Theatre in 1960 and returns to pose outside the Windmill International 49 years later in October 2009 - Photos Courtesy Jill Millard Shapiro |
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Left - The Last Souvenir Programme issued by the Windmill Theatre Co., Ltd., in 1964. - Courtesy Maurice Poole.
Van Damm continued right up until his own death in 1960 when his daughter Sheila Van Damm took over the reins. The Windmill's success was however not to last forever and on the 31st of October 1964 Revudeville at the Windmill finally came to end, the London 'Evening News' reported the imminent closure in their 1st of October 1964 edition, a reprint of which can be seen here. Right - On the 31st of October 1964 the Windmill Theatre shut its doors on Revudeville for the last time. Click here to see the last night programme. The Theatre was bought by the Compton Cinema Group and the building was then reconstructed as a cinema and casino. In 1973 a campaign was started in an attempt to convert the building back into a Theatre again and to revive it's earlier Revudeville style of productions but sadly this came to nothing.
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The
Windmill Theatre opened on the 15th of June 1931 with the Michael Barringer
play '
The
success of 'Revudeville' at the Windmill encouraged Laura Henderson
to try out these Revues in other Theatres. In 1932 the 
It
certainly would be a marvelous thing for us if we could please everybody
in this respect, but unfortunately at the moment that is not possible.
One day however, judging by the way in which 
The
Windmill is also famous for the fact that it was the only Theatre
in London which never closed during the war, except for the twelve
compulsory days between the 4th and 16th of September 1939, during
the blitz, indeed the poor Windmill cast were often reduced to sleeping
in the Theatre during the worst of the attacks.
The
following year, in February 1974, the Theatre was bought by Paul Raymond
who announced
his intention of making the Windmill a home for nude shows again,
but as history has shown, this was to be an entirely different class
of entertainment altogether.
Left
- A Programme for "Lets Get Laid"a Paul Raymond production
which featured the well know artistes John Inman, Jack Haig, and Fiona
Richmond. The programme is dated 2nd September,1974 and the production
was directed by Victor Spinetti. - Courtesy Maurice Poole.