Gielgud Theatre
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The Gielgud Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Shaftesbury Avenue in London, at the corner of Rupert Street. The house currently has 889 seats on three levels.
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[edit] History
The theatre opened on December 27, 1906 as the Hicks Theatre in honour of actor, manager and playwright Seymour Hicks, for whom it was built. Designed by W.G.R. Sprague[1] in Louis XVI style, the theatre originally had 970 seats, but over the years boxes and other seats have been removed. The theatre is a pair with the Queen's Theatre, which opened in 1907 on the adjacent street corner.
The first play at the theatre was a musical called The Beauty of Bath by Hicks and Cosmo Hamilton. My Darling, another Hicks musical, followed in 1907, followed by the successful London production of the Straus operetta, A Waltz Dream in 1808. An astonishing event occurred midway through the run of the theatre's next major work, The Dashing Little Duke (1909), which was produced by Hicks. Hicks' wife, Ellaline Terriss, played the title role (a woman playing a man). When she missed several performances due to illness, Hicks stepped into the role — possibly the only case in the history of musical theatre where a husband succeeded to his wife's role.[1]
In 1909, the house was renamed the Globe Theatre. Another "Globe Theatre", located on Newcastle Street, had been demolished in 1902 to make way for the Aldwych, and so the name became available. A number of notable productions ran at this Shaftesbury Avenue theatre and are listed below. Call It A Day by Dodie Smith opened in 1935 and ran for 509 performances, which was considered very successful for the slow inter-war years.
Terence Frisby's There's a Girl in My Soup, opening in 1966, ran for 1,064 performances at the theatre, a record that was not surpassed until Andrew Lloyd Webber's production of the Olivier Award-winning comedy Daisy Pulls It Off by Densie Deegan opened in April 1983 to run for 1,180 performances, the theatre's longest run.[2] In 1987 Peter Shaffer's play Lettice and Lovage was a hit with Maggie Smith and Margaret Tyzack, running for 2 years. The theatre has presented several Alan Ayckbourn premieres, including 1990's Man of the Moment. More recently, Oscar Wilde's classic comedy, An Ideal Husband (1992) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (2004) saw notable revivals.
Refurbished in 1987, with extensive work on the gold leaf in the auditorium, the theatre is particularly notable for its beautiful circular Regency staircase, oval gallery and tower.
In 1994, in anticipation of the 1997 opening of a reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on the South Bank by Sam Wanamaker, the theatre was renamed in honour of British actor John Gielgud. In 2003, Sir Cameron Mackintosh announced plans to refurbish The Gielgud Theatre, including a joint entrance foyer, with the adjacent Queen's Theatre, facing on to Shaftesbury Avenue.
[edit] Notable productions
- 1907: Brewster's Millions by Winchell Smith & Byron Ongley
- 1908: A Waltz Dream an operetta by Oscar Straus
- 1914: Kismet, a revival of Edward Knoblock's play, with Henry Daniell in his London debut.
- 1916: Peg O' My Heart by John Hartley Manners
- 1920: Fédora, a revival of the 1882 play by Victorien Sardou, with Basil Rathbone as Loris Ipanoff
- 1925: Fallen Angels by Noël Coward, starring Tallulah Bankhead
- 1931: The Improper Duchess by James B. Fagan, starring Yvonne Arnaud
- 1935: Call it a Day by Dodie Smith
- 1939: The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, with John Gielgud starring as well as directing
- 1942: The Petrified Forest by Robert Sherwood
- 1949: The Lady's Not for Burning by Christopher Fry, with Richard Burton in a supporting role
- 1959: The Complaisant Lover by Graham Greene, starring Ralph Richardson
- 1960: A Man For All Seasons by Robert Bolt, starring Paul Scofield
- 1966: There's a Girl in My Soup by Terence Frisby
- 1976: A season of Barry Humphries as Dame Edna Everage
- 1982: Design for Living by Noël Coward, starring Vanessa Redgrave
- 1983: Daisy Pulls It Off by Densie Deegan
- 1987: Lettice and Lovage by Peter Shaffer, starring Maggie Smith and Margaret Tyzack
- 1990: Man of the Moment by Alan Ayckbourn
- 1992: An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde
- 1995: Design for Living, starring Rachel Weisz
[edit] Selected recent productions
- 2003: Tell Me on a Sunday, with Denise Van Outen
- 2004: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, starring Christian Slater
- 2005: Don Carlos, starring Derek Jacobi
- 2005: Some Girls, starring David Schwimmer
- 2005: And Then There Were None, starring Tara Fitzgerald
- 2006: The Crucible, starring Iain Glen
- 2006: The Canterbury Tales
- 2007: Equus by Peter Shaffer, starring Daniel Radcliffe and Richard Griffiths
[edit] References
- History of the theatre
- History and photos of the theatre and other images
- Description of the theatre and its architecture
- Profile of theatre with list of productions
- Profile of the theatre
- Another profile of the theatre
- Information about Daisy Pulls It Off
[edit] Further reading
- Who's Who in the Theatre, edited by John Parker, tenth edition, revised, London, 1947, pp. 477-478 and 1183.
- Bergan, Ronald, The Great Theatres of London. An Illustrated Companion (Prion, 1990) (ISBN 1-85375-057-3).
- Berry, Patricia Dee, Theatrical London (Britain in Old Photographs series) (Alan Sutton, 1995) (ISBN 0-7509-0942-0).
[edit] External links
- Gielgud Theatre from the London Theatre Guide, a website of the Society of London Theatre
- Gielgud Theatre London
- Profile of Seymour Hicks
