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____________________________________________________________________________________________ Coventry Theatres and Halls The Theatre / The Theatre Royal / The Empire Theatre of Varieties, Smithford Street, Coventry
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The first permanent theatre building
was erected in 1819 by Sir
Skears Rew, a local businessman. Like other theatres of the period,
the Royal ran a stock company for about two months in the year and was
part of a local circuit. It suffered the general downturn in attendances
during the 1840s and 1850s
but managed to stay afloat whereas many others closed permanently. The
interior was modernised in 1857
along the lines of newer theatres but initial public enthusiasm soon
faded The above text is a concise history of the Empire, kindly written for this site by Ted Bottle. Ted Bottle is the author of 'Coventry's Forgotten Theatre, The Theatre Royal and Empire' published by Badger Press, in which he describes the Theatre's fascinating history in detail and includes glimpses of other Coventry Theatres and Music Halls, with an informative background of nineteenth Century English Provincial Theatre. Click the image to buy this book at Amazon.co.uk. Arthur Lloyd is know to have performed at the Empire Theatre of Varieties, Coventry in 1895 T. C. King, who was Arthur Lloyd's father in law and father of Katty King, Arthur's wife, headed a week of classics at the Theatre Royal, Coventry in January 1884. The productions that week were 'Othello,' 'Ingomar,' The Merchant Of Venice,' and 'Hamlet.' |
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COVENTRY HIPPODROME PANTOMIMES 40 YEARS AGO
Also see this article on Britains Hippodrome Theatres here... The pantomimes were magical and it was a 52 weeks in the year job manufacturing that make believe land. The scenic workshops in the old Plaza cinema and the wardrobe department at a disused garage in Quinton Road worked on pantomime land all the year. Apart from the Hippodrome pantomimes were also presented at the Alhambra Theatre Bradford, The Hippodrome Theatre Brighton, the Lyceum Theatre Sheffield and the Hippodrome Theatre Dudley by Sam Newsome who was the presiding genius and producer at the Hippodrome. He built the theatre in the thirties and opened it despite the opposition of Cinema. He kept it open despite the German bombs during the war, and made it the show place of the midlands in the fifties and early sixties. When times started to get hard after the advent of television in 1963 he asked the council to give him some relief on his rates. In their wonderful wisdom they refused and set in motion a chain of events that resulted in that hole in the ground on the corner of Hales Street where the theatre used to be. Donald Auty 2003 Also see Pantomime economics of fifty years ago by Donald Auty Also by Donald Auty on this site:
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It
is almost a year ago that they demolished the old Coventry Hippodrome
(Shown Right). Dam their eyes! Forty years ago it was the premier
pantomime date in the Midlands. It was a big theatre almost 2000 seats
nearly twice the size of the Belgrade with a fly tower which meant that
you could put on much larger and spectacular scenes than you can at
the Belgrade, but the Coventry Council eventually achieved an ambition
that germinated forty years ago and pulled the poor old place down.
