Gaiety Theatre There have been, for all intents and purposes, three theatres on the site where the Citibank Aldwych Strand now stands. 1: The Strand Music Hall - 1864 2: The Old Gaiety Theatre - 1868 3: The New Gaiety Theatre - 1903 See Theatreland Maps The Strand Music Hall was re-built in 1868 and renamed The Gaiety Theatre. Arthur Lloyd performed there in the early days of his career in London. This theatre was eventually demolished to make way for the Aldwych-Strand road widening, and the New Gaiety Theatre was built in the center of the new road scheme in 1903. This was a fine and imposing building but it was to have a short if distinguished life. Home to variety, musicals, plays, music hall, and the infamous ‘Gaiety Girls’ the New Gaiety Theatre survived two world wars, just, but after closing its doors in 1939 it eventually succumbed to the 'fifties theatre slaughter' and was demolished just 53 years after being built, in 1956. A building of very similar dimensions to the New Gaiety now stands on the site of so much theatrical history. The present building houses a branch of the Citibank, but does have a plaque on its southern wall commemorating the site's history. (M.L.) Above - The Illustrated London News 1957 reports on the building soon to replace the Gaiety. - Click to enlarge. Gaiety site then and now... Gaiety Cuttings KEN Paterson is an East London "character" in his own right from an era in the city filled with "colourful" characters. The fact he was in a business that led him to deal with many of these people and his memory of associated incidents made his task of writing an interesting and often humorous book that much easier. Section follows... July 22, 1950: London's Gaiety Theatre, the birthplace of musical comedy in Britain and the centre of the capital's gayest entertainment for three generations, is to be pulled down. The historic theatre, in which the choruses of the "Gaiety Girls" won fame, will be replaced by a modern block to form the London headquarters of the Indian High Commissioner. Lupino Lane, a member of Britain's oldest stage family, sold it for £190,000, after buying it in 1945 for £200,000 and spending £25,000 in repairs. The first stage production that was considered a musical comedy was a show that was transferred from the Prince of Wales Theatre to the Gaiety Theatre in London in 1892. Staged by George Edwardes, the show called 'In Town' featured a chorus line of Gaiety Girls. The following year 'A Gaiety Girl' was equally successful, and a production of the show played in New York in the same year. When it was reviewed in newspapers, it was designated a musical comedy and regarded as a new form of entertainment. ...That old Gaiety Theatre stood a little to the west of the site of the present house, and was much less handsome, both internally and externally. The front entrance was in the Strand, and a few years later a crystal illumination over its porch was one of the cheerful symbols of London by night. Round the corner, in Wellington Street, over the classic facade of the Lyceum, another such illumination gleamed, from the eighties onward, and each of these embellishments had its thrilling associations for playgoers who were young then. That old Gaiety has vanished, so also has the old Lyceum, save its facade; but the art-form known as Gilbert-and-Sullivan Opera is with us still. Long may it continue! ...The Gaiety Theatre opened in The Strand, London in 1864 and closed for refurbishment in 1902. It reopened with new seats in 1903. The Gaiety finally closed in 1939 after presenting the farce "Running Riot". Its contents were sold to a cinema in North London which was closed in 1956. The seats were auctioned and the then Archway Theatre Treasurer, George Coutts and Vice Chairman Alex McKenzie, borrowed a lorry and attended the auction. They bought some eighty seats for £75. The condition of the sale was that purchasers must remove the seats (which were screwed to the cinema floor) and take them away that day. George and Alex and the seats, arrived back in the Archway Theatre well after midnight.The "Gaiety" seats were used in the Archway Theatre from 1956 - 1981

Gaiety Cuttings ...Why should a man in Lawson's position, with no theatrical connections, think of building himself a theatre? The answer, according to Hollingshead in Gaiety Chronicles, written in 1898, is: There is no pounds shillings and pence investment known to'those in the trade'that can equal the building of the right theatre at the right time and in the right place... theatrical. bricks and mortar, far from being a speculation, are something more than what is called a 'dead certainty'. They are, in the language of today, a Klondyke - a living treasure. Exaggerated though this assessment is, and though it rests on the assumption that the speculator gets things 'right', it is an indication of how times have changed since theatre building was a worthwhile investment in London. Hollingshead's point is that at the time he took over management of the Gaiety, the tenant took all the risks, and the landlord hardly any. Hollingshead paid his rent three months in advance; he paid all rates, taxes and insurance on the theatre; he gave an undertaking that any scenery, costume, machinery or props taken in for production could not leave without the landlord's permission, and that the theatre should be left as a 'going concern'. He gave a deposit against repairs to the building, and Lawson had the right to two boxes and some other seats when he wanted them. The Gaiety was, to use Hollingshead's own words, a theatre 'at the right time in the right place'. It was at the eastern end of the Strand, then still the hub of Victorian theatreland, close to both Drury Lane and Covent Garden. In its design and its site it was characteristic of nearly all London theatres. The entrance was on the Strand, a narrow fasade giving on to a busy thoroughfare. 'The theatre builder does not want a frontage like a new bank or a new hotel,' Hollingshead wrote. 'He wants access to a chief thoroughfare, if he can get it ... and he can build his temple of the drama on a back stable yard and the storehouses of ashes and vegetable refuse'. In other words, the glittering auditorium, on the outside no more than an ugly brick shell, is built on cheap land, while the front on expensive land is kept narrow. The cost of building was relatively cheap in the nineteenth century, and in the case of the Gaiety incredibly fast. In fact, the builders were still at work on the opening day, 21 December 1868. As the cast went through their final rehearsal, the final touches were put to the building. Hollingshead recalled: About twenty minutes past six the last of the lingering workmen filed out with the implements of their handicraft, leaving a trail of lime dust behind them. They filed off the stage, but not out of the house and took up a firm position, with their implements, in the front rows of the upper balcony. When the acting manager remonstrated with them before he opened the various doors to the public they declined to move, and said they had built the (adjective) theatre and they meant to see it opened. Hollingshead let them keep their seats. As a theatre manager, Hollingshead sailed very close to'variety'and once called himself a 'licensed dealer in legs, short skirts, French adaptations. Shakespeare, taste and musical glasses'. He was always on the lookout for something new and something titillating. His theatre, its image, its entertainment were all of a piece, a recognizable institution with its own style, which he managed for eighteen years. Until 1914. nearly all London theatres did in fact have, for long periods under a single management, a recognizable style. You would go to the Gaiety for light relief and the pretty girls, to the Lyceum to be thrilled by Henry Irving, to the Haymarket to be entertained by the Bancrofts. or if you were out in Hoxton in the East End, to the Britannia to enjoy the productions of Sara Lane and her company. Today, West End theatres are simply receptacles for changing productions: they no longer have a permanent individual character. From Bright Lights, Big City by Gavin Weightman. The image below has a sign for the Tivoli which was a music hall in the Strand built by the renowned theate architect Frank Matcham.

Gaiety Cuttings ...One of Romano's attractions to young men were the Gaiety Girls. George Edwardes took over the Gaiety Theatre, which used to stand where the western edge of Bush House now is, in 1885. He was a member of the Pelican Club and decided to give the Gaiety something the other theatres did not have. Today we call it glamour and it took the form of securing the prettiest girls in the country and putting them on the Gaiety stage. Of course, young men flocked to the Gaiety. Tierney, the stage-door keeper, made enough money in tips to build the street in Streatham which bears his name. Edwardes arranged with Romano's restaurant for his girls to dine there at half-price. It was good exposure for the girls and made Romano's the center of London's night-life. ...But what of the legacy left by Gilbert and Sullivan themselves? Many of the theatres Gilbert knew have been swept away. The Opera Comique and its rickety twin, the Globe: the Gaiety, the Olympic and the Royal Strand -- all fell victim to the development of Aldwych and Kingsway from 1900 to 1905 ...Theatre Museum - A 22 foot high gold statue of the Spirit of Gaiety, which once stood on the roof of the long-gone Gaiety variety theater, lures you down into the museum's subterranean galleries with their fascinating collection of Britain's proudest theatrical memorabilia. A display illustrates the development of theater from Shakespeare's time to the present, with models of auditoriums through the ages. ...Lutz: The German composer Wilhelm Meyer Lutz wrote scores for burleques and operettas; and particularly for John Hollingshead's Gaiety Theatre (now demolished), which was in the Strand, London. "The Forty Thieves" was performed in 1880, and "Aladdin" in 1881.   Fortunately, Leslie Henson was standing in the wings, waiting to go on. Without waiting for his cue he dashed on to the stage, signaling to the musical director to play as hard as possible. They stuck to their task, and a vigorous chorus brought about calm, or at least abstention from further panic. Then, George Grossmith made a short speech which brought bursts of applause, and their show also carried on. Text here...

Gaiety Cuttings The Gaiety Theatre A theatre that stood in the Strand (in an area now part of the Aldwych): it opened in 1864 and closed in 1903 when that area of London underwent reconstruction. From 1868 it achieved celebrity as a theatre of light entertainment under the management of John Hollingshead (1827-1904), whose boast was to keep alive 'the sacred lamp of burlesque'. In that category fell Thespis (1871), the first stage collaboration of Gilbert and Sullivan, of which the music is now lost. George Edwardes (1852-1918), a name as famous as Hollingshead's in London theatrical management, took over in 1886, opening with Alfred Cellier's Dorothy, which achieved a longer run (931 performances) than any of Gilbert and Sullivan's pieces and is sometimes said to have inaugurated the genre of musical comedy.   See also August's Special Feature See also last night programme for original Gaiety Theatre See also page one for the Gaiety Theatre     Victorian London - Directories - Dickens's Dictionary of London, by Charles Dickens, Jr., 1879 - "G" Gaiety Theatre, Strand, near Wellington-street. — A good-sized house, handsomely decorated, and conducted upon unusually liberal principles. Right - Gaiety Theatre seating plan - Click to Enlarge. No fees are allowed in any part of the establishment; programmes being supplied gratis. In a little recess on the right-hand side of the box-corridor will be found the evening papers, and some comfortable divans whereon to lounge and read them during the intervals of the performance. Like the Criterion, this theatre was originally built in connection with a restaurant; the intention being to allow any one who wished an evenings amusement to get comfortably from his dinner to his stall without the trouble of donning great coat and hat, or the risk of getting wet or muddy. The doors of communication, however, were closed by order of the Lord Chamberlain, and the theatre and the restaurant are now two separate establishments. As at the Criterion, however, a sort of compromise has been effected, and a door just inside the theatre entrance gives admission to the restaurant without actually turning out into the rain. The specialty of the Gaiety has varied from time to time. At present it may be said to be comedy and burlesque. The entrance is lighted by the Lontin electric light. NEAREST Railway Station, Temple; Omnibus Routes, St. Martins-lane, Strand, Chancery-lane, and Waterloo-bridge. Old Gaiety Theatre Interior 1868 From 'The Lost Theatres Of London' Raymond Mander and Joe Mitchenson ...This vast operation began in the last years of the nineteenth century and was not finally completed until after the First World War. Four theatres were demolished during the early stages of the work. The Olympic Theatre in Wych Street and the Opera Comique in the Strand were closed in 1899, the Globe Theatre in Newcastle Street shut its doors in 1902. This was followed by the closure of the Gaiety Theatre in the Strand in June of the same year. ...The History of the Gaieties Cricket Club Gaieties Cricket Club is a wandering side which plays cricket in the Home Counties. It was founded in 1937 by the Musichall artist Lupino Lane, whose company was at that time based at the Gaiety Theatre, in London. After the death of Lupino Lane the club was captained by his son Lauri Lupino Lane, who was succeeded in 1972 by Harold Pinter, who is now Chairman. The Gaiety Theatre has now been demolished, but a plaque marks its site in the Strand and the cricket club continues to thrive.   ...In the first place let me correct one or two small popular errors in regard to the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. They number in all not thirteen (as is frequently stated) but fourteen. They were not all produced at the Opéra Comique and the Savoy, for the first was originally acted at the old Gaiety Theatre and the second at the Royalty Theatre in Dean street. Finally, Cox and Box (which contains some of Sullivan's prettiest music) and Contrabandista are not Gilbert and Sullivan at all, but Burnand and Sullivan. The first collaborative work of William Schwenck Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan was the comic opera in two Acts called Thespis, or the Gods Grown Old, and it was first presented by M. John Hollingshead at the Gaiety on the night of December 23rd, 1871. Those were not the days of the Puff Preliminary as we know it now, when, for obvious reasons, the public often hear a great deal more about a play before it has been produced than they do after that fateful event. Yet there was a good deal of talk about Thespis beforehand; and one of the illustrated papers published an amusing drawing of a rehearsal of the piece with Hollingshead and Robert Soutar drilling the performers, and the author, with his silk hat tilted slightly forward and the "scrip" in his hand, watching the proceedings with ominous eyes. The piece was not a great success, but the night of its production was destined to mark an epoch. One of the most brilliant chapters in the annals of the British Theatre dates from it.

New Gaiety Theatre Interior 1903 From 'The Lost Theatres Of London' Raymond Mander and Joe Mitchenson

Gaiety Cuttings Christopher Morley, ed. (1890–1957). Modern Essays. 1921. ... London is always beautiful to those who love and understand that extraordinary microcosm; but at five of a summer morning there is about her an exquisite quality of youthful fragrance and debonair freshness which goes to the heart. The newly-hosed streets are shining in the sunlight as though paved with “patines of bright gold.” Early ’buses rumble by from neighboring barns where they have spent the night. And, as we near the new Gaiety Theatre, thrusting forward into the great rivers of traffic soon to pour round its base like some bold Byzantine promontory, we see Waterloo Bridge thronged with wagons, piled high. From all quarters they are coming, past Charing Cross the great wains are arriving from Paddington Terminal, from the market-garden section of Middlesex and Surrey. Down Wellington Street come carts laden with vegetables from Brentwood and Coggeshall, and neat vans packed with crates of watercress which grows in the lush lowlands of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, and behind us are thundering huge fourhorse vehicles from the docks, vehicles with peaches from South Africa, potatoes from the Canary Islands, onions from France, apples from California, oranges from the West Indies, pineapples from Central America, grapes from Spain and bananas from Colombia. ...About 1870 Low Hill House was bought by a man who in fifty years developed a small builders business into a company of civil engineers of national importance. Henry Lovatt, born in Wolverhampton on January 19th 1831, was educated at the Grammar School and Doctor Newman's school at the Deanery. In 1858 he bought the builders and contractors business of John Ellis in Darlington Street. Between 1864 and 1878 his company was engaged in works for the Government, railways, reservoirs, churches and banks. Contracts included the widening of the Great Western lines out of Paddington and work for the Great Northern, Great Eastern, Midland, London and South Western, Great Central, and London Brighton and South Coast railways. He made improvements to the Limehouse Dock and later built the large new dock of the Manchester Ship Canal. In the west end of London they built the Carlton Hotel, His Majesty's Theatre in the Haymarket, the Central Technical Institute at South Kensington, the new Gaiety Theatre in the Strand, the King's Theatre Hammersmith, and also the New Theatre Royal at Birmingham. Industrial premises included, locally, the Electric Construction Company at Gorsebrook and Siemens Brothers at Stafford, followed by the Electric Generator Station at Greenwich and the new barracks on Salisbury Plain. In Paris they built the new American Church and, at Portsmouth, a jetty and the new Naval Barracks. At the time of his death in May 1913 the company was engaged in erecting a new barracks in Cairo. ...Strand: Shell Mex House suffered heavy damage at 0047 hours by HE bombs. The central tower was demolished and the top storey is in danger of collapse. The Strand was blocked from Adam's Street to Aldwych. Bombs also fell near the Gaiety Theatre and serious flooding took place as a result of burst water main. McLEOD, Alan Arnett ...On the night of September 4, he was at the Gaiety Theatre on the Strand with a number of his friends when a bomb landed in the street nearby, and he with many others in the theatre were called upon to render assistance in taking the injured people to safety. __________________________________________________________ Gaiety Cuttings 1929 LOVE LIES - Opened at the Gaiety Theatre on March 20, 1929 and ran for 347 performances. Cast included Cyril, Madge, Laddie Cliff , Reita Nugent , Stanley Lupino and Connie Emerald. Music by Hal Brody; lyrics by Desmond Carter; book by Stanley Lupino and Arthur Rigby; with additional songs by Leslie Sarony. Cyril played Jack Stanton. A contemporary THEATRE WORLD review called it "the jolliest musical show in London, played by a company of all-around excellence at a speed that defines criticism" and cited the "whirlwind dancing" of Cyril and Marge as the happy couple "who leap, as only Cyril Ritchard and Madge Elliott can leap, through the open window of the ballroom to, one hopes, a safe landing and eternal happiness below." Further, "Cyril Ritchard and Madge Elliott make a delightful hero and heroine. Their dancing is superbly graceful, far ahead of anything on the musical comedy stage today. Cyril Ritchard has also developed into a fist-class light comedian with a style all his own."

John Hollingshead - Gaiety Theatre Manager   Life of P G Wodehouse by Tony Ring EARLY THEATRICAL ACTIVITY 1904 - 1907 ...In 1904 Wodehouse wrote the lyric Put Me In My Little Cell which was added to the show Sergeant Brue during its run at the Strand and Prince of Wales Theatres. On March 19, 1906 he took a job with Seymour Hicks (at a fee of ?2 per week) as a contributor of topical encore verses for The Beauty of Bath at the Aldwych (and then Hicks) theatres, working with Jerome Kern. Later in 1907 he contributed two lyrics to The Gay Gordons at the Aldwych, and in December took a job, again at ?2 per week, as resident lyrist at the Gaiety. ...In the other showcase is the original deed of purchase of Knebworth on 17th February 1490; also a letter from an architect concerning alterations to the Library in 1878 which advises 'the most perfect way of lighting this new library would be by the electric light now being used outside the Gaiety Theatre in the Strand and will most probably supersede gas entirely for large spaces and buildings'. ...Constance Collier (born Laura Constance Hardie in Windsor, Berkshire) was the only child of Auguste Cheetham Hardie (1853-1939) and Eliza Georgina Collier (1854-1914). Both were professional actors, although, certainly later in their careers, neither of them was very successful. According to J P Wearing's The London Stage, 1890-1899, he appeared, during that nine-year period, in but three plays, while his wife as in only two. Constance made her stage debut at the age of three, when she played Fairy Peasblossom in A Midsummer's Night Dream. In 1893, at the age of fifteen, she joined the Gaiety Girls, the famous dance troupe based at the Gaiety Theatre in London. She was very beautiful and soon became so tall that she towered over all the other dancers. In addition, she had enormous personality and considerable determination. She naturally attracted considerable attention.

...Of the hundreds of performances we gave of the Pimpernel, one at least will be for ever fixed in my memory. It took place in 1915; the actual date was October 13th, the tenth anniversary of Irving’s death. We were playing at the Strand Theatre, of which we had a twelve months’ tenancy. The curtain had risen on the ballroom scene in the Second Act. On the stage, appropriately enough, the machinations of Chauvelin were in full swing. At the theatre entrance Arthur Garrett, our manager, was watching the passers-by. Suddenly a Bow Street official, with whom he was acquainted, rushed past him. “A fleet of Zepplins is traveling this way from Bury St. Edmonds. They’ll be here in a few minutes.” Garrett called his assistant. Together they repaired to the theatre bar to fortify themselves. Just as the girl behind the counter was serving them, the first bomb fell. It hit the public-house by the Lyceum. Garrett leapt from top to bottom of the stairs leading to the circle to be with the audience. The Gaiety call-boy rushed in covered with dust: the explosion had blown him into our theatre, and there was a piece of shrapnel under his heart. Garrett’s assistant cut open the poor boy’s clothes and dressed the wounds until he could be taken to hospital. The second bomb dropped and just missed the Strand. From the stage clouds of smoke seemed to be rising in the auditorium. The dreadful thought crossed our minds that the theatre was on fire. Actually the smoke was only dust from falling debris. Above the din Garrett shouted: “Keep your heads,” and Fred, hearing his manager’s voice, cried from the stage: “Are you all right in front?” To this Garrett replied: “We’re all right; all we want to do is to cheer.” My husband left the stage and walked among the audience, helping Garrett to restore confidence in front. After talking to the people for a time, Fred returned to the footlights and gave a signal to the orchestra, who struck up the National Anthem. It was a splendid moment. The whole audience rose and sang with all their might; then the play was resumed. It was only later that I heard more details of the dreadful catastrophe. In our own theatre the barmaid in the circle was blown clean out of it, but was fortunately not injured. Then the pit box-office taker was also blown out of his box into the pit itself. Outside in the street I was told that an old woman whom we knew as ‘Nell Gwyn,’ for she was an orange-seller, who had been there for many years, was blown to bits. Over at the Gaiety Theatre the scenery door was blown in by the explosion and there was nearly a panic among the audience and the chorus girls. See also August's Special Feature