The Little Theatre, Kingston Square, Hull

Formerly - The Central Fire Station / Lecture Theatre

Hull Theatres Index

Above - The Little Theatre, Hull - From a programme for the Theatre whilst under the direction of Peppino Santangelo - Courtesy Dave Wilson.

The Little Theatre was situated on Kingston Square, Hull, next door to the current New Theatre, and was a conversion of a former Lecture Hall and even earlier Central Fire Station. The Little Theatre was built as a home for the then newly formed Hull Repertory Company under the leadership of A. R. Whatmore, and opened for its first season on the 13th of September 1924 with a production of the play 'Passers By'.

Right - A programme for the Little Theatre, Hull whilst under the direction of Peppino Santangelo - Courtesy Dave Wilson.

The Theatre is mentioned in Hubert Nicholson's 'Half My Days and Nights. A Memoir of the 1920s and30s'. Nicholson was a poet, novelist and journalist and was a reporter on a Hull newspaper in the 1920s, later becoming the theatre critic for the paper. He talks about his time reviewing the plays that the Little Theatre produced on pages 74 and 75. In various passages he says:- 'I estimated that the Hull Little Theatre had a future. I was keen about it. Nobody else in the newspaper office thought it anything but a little stunt on the part of the local culture-cranks... I took it terribly seriously. To keep myself unspotted by taint of partiality I refused to go backstage and meet the players. I wrote exactly what I thought, however unpleasant. Sometimes my name was hated at the theatre, but the public read my critiques and wrote letters about them, heatedly taking sides... Many of those early stars at Hull's Little became famous, later. Some were established already - Colette O'Niel for instance, who had played Helen of Troy in Sybil Thorndike's production of The Trojan Women... Colin Clive was another actor, then scarcely known, who shot to fame later in Journey's End and who died in Hollywood at an early age. With him in the company was his wife, Evelyn Taylor, one of the loveliest girls I ever saw, who died tragically after a short film career; so was Carl Harbord (known then as Kerslake Harbord), golden-haired and gifted; and Roland Culver who made a hit later in films.' - Hubert Nicholson, 'Half My Days and Nights. A Memoir of the 1920s and30s'.

Above - A selection of programmes for the Hull Little and New Theatres - Courtesy Dave Wilson.

When Cyril Barton, along with his Manager Peppino Santangelo, took the reigns of the Company in July 1933 they quickly cleared the Little Theatre's former debts and turned the Theatre into a profit making Organisation, and it wasn't long before they began looking at the Assembly Rooms building next door as a possible new home for the Company.

Right - The New Theatre, Hull in the 1960s - From a programme for the New Theatre - Courtesy Marcus Heald.

This they achieved in 1939 and despite the war stopping construction for a while the New Theatre, Hull was opened on the 16th of October 1939 and the Company moved out of the Little Theatre and into their new home with a production of 'Me and My Girl'.

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