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____________________________________________________________________________________________ The Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London, W.1
Above - The Lyric Theatre during the run of 'Cabaret' in October 2006.
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Left - Pre 1907 seating plan for the Lyric Theatre - Click to Enlarge. Right - Programme for 'Othello' at the Lyric Theatre in 1897 - Click to see Entire Programme. The
Lyric Theatre forms part of a block which includes the Apollo
Theatre and the Windmill
Theatre, but the Lyric takes up most of the frontage of the block.
The Lyric's stage door and dressing rooms are on Great Windmill Street,
next to the Windmill's main entrance, and it used to have a Gallery
entrance on Archer Street at the back of the Theatre. The Lyric is now
one of four Theatres in a row on Shaftesbury Left - The auditorium and stage of the Lyric Theatre in 1889 - From 'London Theatres and Music Halls' by Dianna Howard - The original is at the British Museum. The Lyric was designed by C. J. Phipps and built for Henry J. Leslie by Messrs Stephens and Bastow. Leslie financed the building of his new Theatre from the profits of 'Dorothy' from which he apparently made the huge sum at the time of £100,000. The Theatre's Freehold is now owned by the Theatres Trust. |
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Right - The Lyric Theatre's Windmill Street Facade showing the remains of the house that once stood there, now the Lyric's dressing room block and stage door entrance. M.L. 06. |
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Above Left - Programme for 'The Medal and The Maid,' a musical comedy with Ada Reeve and Ruth Vincent produced at the Lyric Theatre during the end of the Forbes-Robertson season in April 1903. Above Right - Programme for 'The Duchess Of Dantzic,' a romantic opera by Henry Hamilton, produced at the Lyric Theatre during the end of the Forbes-Robertson season in October 1903, a musical version of the story of Napoleon, which ran for 236 performance. |
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Right - Programme for 'The Gold Diggers' at the Lyric Theatre in 1926, which ran for 180 performances. Left - Early postcard showing the Lyric and Apollo Theatres side by side in Shaftesbury Avenue. The Theatre is unusual in that it still uses water to operate the iron curtain. Originally this was pumped from the Thames to most Theatres and Hotels around London's West End and used to hydraulically operate lifts and all manor of heavy machinery. Today the Lyric's Iron Curtain is operated via an electric pump but can also be operated manually by two people at a time, though it's a very labour intensive job, and slow too. The Lyric was also fitted with a large revolve which is still operable today, either by a huge and ancient electric rectifier or by hand. |
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Right - The Lighting Console Desk at the Lyric Theatre in 1976. Photo M.L. Our board at the Lyric also had a speed control which was like a large accelerator on a car. You had to push the pedal harder with your foot to create faster lighting changes. On matinees the electricity supply was always at a lower voltage than in the evenings so that you had to increase the speed to attain the same lighting fade times. The Console, situated at the back of the Dress Circle, in the bar conveniently, was connected to dimmer racks in the basement under the stage, and these consisted of huge racks of massive dimmers operated by a large motor and clutches. When doing a fast lighting cue you could sometimes hear the motor screaming under the stage from the Stalls. The tabs you can see in the picture above right were used to select which channels you wanted to move in the next lighting change, and groups of these could be selected at once by using stops which were to the right of the Console. When you pulled the stops out the tabs would jump down and the whole desk would thump and 'ding' like a pinball machine. It could take up to two minutes to set all the faders on the presets for the next cue so that rapid lighting changes were something of a challenge. Nowadays lighting is all done with computers and mostly at the touch of one button, and whilst this is far more efficient and versatile it certainly isn't anything like the adrenaline inducing operation of a Rank Strand Console Desk. |
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Left - Programme for 'The Flashing Stream' at the Lyric Theatre in 1938 with Godfrey Tearle and Margaret Rawlings, which ran for 201 performances. The Lyric Theatre has been home to a great many successful
productions in its time and Right - The Lyric Theatre stage door and Windmill Theatre entrance in June 1977. The CZ Motorcycle parked by The Lyric Theatre hoardings belonged to the late Sir Ralph Richardson who was also an avid BMW Motorcycle owner, he was appearing at the Lyric at the time, in 'The Kingfisher'. The other bike was mine. - Photo M.L. 1977. |
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Above - The Lyric and Apollo Theatres in Shaftesbury Avenue looking towards Piccadilly Circus - Photo M.L. 2006 - Click for London's West End Theatres page. Above - The Lyric, Apollo, Gielgud, and Queen's Theatres in Shaftesbury Avenue looking towards Cambridge Circus - Photo M.L. 2006 - Click for London's West End Theatres page. |
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Adelphi Aldwych Apollo Apollo Victoria Arts Cambridge Comedy Criterion Dominion Drury Lane Duchess Duke Of Yorks Fortune Garrick Gielgud Haymarket Her Majesty's London Coliseum London Palladium Lyceum Lyric New Ambassadors New London Noel Coward / Albery Novello Old Vic Palace Peacock Phoenix Piccadilly Playhouse Prince Edward Prince of Wales Queen's Royal Opera House Savoy Shaftesbury St. Martin's Trafalgar Studios / Whitehall Vaudeville Victoria Palace Wyndham's
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