St James's Theatre
Encyclopedia
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Samuel Beazley
Samuel Beazley was an English architect, novelist and playwright. He became the leading theatre architect of his time and the first notable English expert in that field....
and built by the partnership of Peto & Grissell
Samuel Morton Peto
Sir Samuel Morton Peto, 1st Baronet was an English entrepreneur and civil engineer in the 19th century. A partner in Grissell and Peto, he managed construction firms that built many major buildings and monuments in London...
for the tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
and theatre director, John Braham
John Braham
John Braham was a tenor opera singer born in London, England. His long career led him to become one of Europe's leading opera stars. He also wrote a number of songs, of minor importance, although The Death of Nelson is still remembered...
. The interior was decorated by the Frederick Crace Company.
History
The theatre opened on 14 December 1835 with a mixed programme of an operatic burletta, Agnes Sorel, starring Braham, and two farces by Gilbert Abbott à BeckettGilbert Abbott à Beckett
Gilbert Abbott à Beckett was an English humorist.He was born in London, the son of a lawyer, and belonged to a family claiming descent from Thomas Becket...
. In 1840, it changed its name to "Prince's Theatre", but changed it back in 1841. The theatre was rebuilt several times: in 1869, 1879-80. It closed on 27 July 1957 and was demolished and rebuilt as an office building.
Early years at the theatre
Productions at the theatre included operaOpera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
, Shakespearian readings, burlesques of opera, ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
, foreign plays, magicians, operetta, and new plays. Braham's company struggled financially, and after a few seasons he gave up. In 1842, John Mitchell took over the theatre, producing mostly French comedies and plays with the greatest stars of the French stage, and the Theatre was a success and became fashionable for a dozen years, even being visited frequently by the Queen Victoria.
In 1846, an amateur performance of Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
’s Every Man in his Humour included Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
playing Captain Bobadil. In 1846, the Ethiopian Serenaders
Ethiopian Serenaders
The Ethiopian Serenaders was a blackface minstrel troupe from the 1840s. Their first major performance was for John Tyler at the White House in 1844 as part of the "Especial Amusement of the President of the United States, His Family and Friends"...
infected London with the American craze for minstrel show
Minstrel show
The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface....
s, a form of entertainment which was to remain popular until the turn of the century. Not long afterwards, the Christy Minstrels opened in London at the theatre on 3 August 1857 before moving to other venues. Their success led to the phrase "Christy Minstrels" coming to mean any blackface minstrel show. F. C. Burnand produced his first major play at the St James's, a burlesque called Dido, in 1860. Benjamin Nottingham Webster
Benjamin Nottingham Webster
Benjamin Nottingham Webster was an English actor-manager and dramatist.-Career:First appearing as Harlequin, and then in small parts at Drury Lane, he went to the Haymarket Theatre in 1829, and was given leading comedy character business.Webster was the lessee of the Haymarket from 1837 to 1853;...
was the manager of the theatre for a time.
In 1866, the theatre presented Henry Irving
Henry Irving
Sir Henry Irving , born John Henry Brodribb, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility for season after season at the Lyceum Theatre, establishing himself and his company as...
's first big success in London as Rawdon Scudamore in Hunted Down; or, The Two Lives of Mary Leigh, by Dion Boucicault
Dion Boucicault
Dionysius Lardner Boursiquot , commonly known as Dion Boucicault, was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-managers then in the...
. In addition, that year saw one of W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
's earliest plays, Dulcamara! or, The Little Duck and the Great Quack, a parody of Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore
L'elisir d'amore
L'elisir d'amore is an opera by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. It is a melodramma giocoso in two acts...
. In 1869, the newly renovated theatre presented Mrs. John Wood
Mrs. John Wood
Mrs. John Wood , born Matilda Charlotte Vining, was an English actress and theatre manager.-Biography:...
, then the proprietress, in a long run (for those days, 160 performances) of She Stoops to Conquer
She Stoops to Conquer
She Stoops to Conquer is a comedy by the Irish author Oliver Goldsmith, son of an Anglo-Irish vicar, first performed in London in 1773. The play is a great favourite for study by English literature and theatre classes in Britain and the United States. It is one of the few plays from the 18th...
. Thomas W. Robertson's last play, War, was produced in 1871, and he died the following month. In 1875, Gilbert's collaborator, Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
(they had just produced their one-act opera, Trial by Jury
Trial by Jury
Trial by Jury is a comic opera in one act, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was first produced on 25 March 1875, at London's Royalty Theatre, where it initially ran for 131 performances and was considered a hit, receiving critical praise and outrunning its...
at another theatre), produced The Zoo
The Zoo
The Zoo is a one-act comic opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by B. C. Stephenson, writing under the pen name of Bolton Rowe. It premiered on 5 June 1875 at the St. James's Theatre in London , concluding its run five weeks later, on 9 July 1875, at the Haymarket Theatre...
, and Gilbert was back the same year with his farce, Tom Cobb
Tom Cobb
Tom Cobb or, Fortune's Toy is a farce in three-acts by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the St. James's Theatre on 24 April 1875...
; or, Fortune's Toy, and in 1888 with a drama, Brantinghame Hall
Brantinghame Hall
Brantinghame Hall is a play in four acts written by W. S. Gilbert for his friend Rutland Barrington, who was then leasing the St. James's Theatre. The play opened on 29 November 1888 and closed on 29 December, after about 27 performances. It starred Barrington, his younger brother, Duncan Fleet,...
, under the management of Rutland Barrington
Rutland Barrington
Rutland Barrington was an English singer, actor, comedian, and Edwardian musical comedy star. Best remembered for originating the lyric baritone roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas from 1877 to 1896, his performing career spanned more than four decades...
, that flopped badly. Barrington had previously produced The Dean's Daughter by Sydney Grundy
Sydney Grundy
Sydney Grundy was an English dramatist. Most of his works were adaptations of European plays, and many became successful enough to tour throughout the English-speaking world...
at the theatre that year, another flop.
After Mrs. Wood, Madge Kendal
Madge Kendal
Dame Madge Kendal GBE , born as Margaret Shafto Robertson, was an English actress of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, best known for her roles in Shakespeare and English comedies. Together with her husband, W. H...
and her husband William Hunter Kendal
William Hunter Kendal
William Hunter Kendal was an English actor and theatre manager. He and his wife Madge starred at the Haymarket in Shakespearian revivals and the old English comedies beginning in the 1860s. In the 1870s, they starred in a series of "fairy comedies" by W. S. Gilbert and in many plays on the West...
took over the theatre together with John Hare
John Hare (actor)
Sir John Hare , born John Fairs, was an English actor and manager of the Garrick Theatre in London from 1889 to 1895.-Biography:Hare was born in Giggleswick in Yorkshire and was educated at Giggleswick school...
, renovating it again in 1879. In 1880, Tom Taylor
Tom Taylor
Tom Taylor was an English dramatist, critic, biographer, public servant, and editor of Punch magazine...
's Still Waters Run Deep was produced, the first of several of his works. About a dozen Arthur Wing Pinero
Arthur Wing Pinero
Sir Arthur Wing Pinero was an English actor and later an important dramatist and stage director.-Biography:...
plays also followed. Some of their notable successes included The Squire, Impulse, The Ironmaster, and A Scrap of Paper. Lillie Langtry
Lillie Langtry
Lillie Langtry , usually spelled Lily Langtry when she was in the U.S., born Emilie Charlotte Le Breton, was a British actress born on the island of Jersey...
took over briefly in 1890, presenting As You Like It
As You Like It
As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the folio of 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility...
and Sydney Grundy
Sydney Grundy
Sydney Grundy was an English dramatist. Most of his works were adaptations of European plays, and many became successful enough to tour throughout the English-speaking world...
's Esther Sandraz.
The George Alexander and inter-war era
George Alexander
George Alexander may refer to:*George Alexander , British actor*George Alexander , mayor of Los Angeles*George T. Alexander , US Army soldier*George W...
had taken over the theatre, and he remained in charge for the rest of his life, until 1918. In 1892, he produced Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
’s first great success, Lady Windermere's Fan
Lady Windermere's Fan
Lady Windermere's Fan, A Play About a Good Woman is a four act comedy by Oscar Wilde, first produced 22 February 1892 at the St James's Theatre in London. The play was first published in 1893...
. In 1895, Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at St. James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae in order to escape burdensome social obligations...
premiered at the theatre. Other Alexander triumphs included The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, by Pinero (1893); The Prisoner of Zenda, by Anthony Hope
Anthony Hope
Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins, better known as Anthony Hope , was an English novelist and playwright. Although he was a prolific writer, especially of adventure novels, he is remembered best for only two books: The Prisoner of Zenda and its sequel Rupert of Hentzau...
(1896); As You Like It
As You Like It
As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the folio of 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility...
(1896); Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy written by William Shakespeare about two pairs of lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, and Claudio and Hero....
(1898); Paolo and Francesca, by Stephen Phillips
Stephen Phillips
Stephen Phillips was a highly famed English poet and dramatist, who enjoyed considerable popularity in his lifetime....
(1902); If I were King, by Justin Huntly McCarthy (1902); Old Heidelberg, by Meyer Forster and Bleichmann (1903) and His House in Order, by Pinero (1906), to name only a few of the plays still remembered. Also premiered during that time was George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
’s Androcles and the Lion in 1913.
After Alexander died, the lease was taken over by Gilbert Miller
Gilbert Miller
Gilbert Heron Miller was an American theatrical producer.Born in New York City, he was the son of English-born theatrical producer Henry Miller and Bijou Heron, a former child actress. Raised and educated in Europe, he returned home to follow in his father's footsteps and became a highly...
, the American impresario, who later purchased the theatre and owned it up to its eventual sale for re-development and demolition. The first play of the new era was The Eyes of Youth, which ran for 383 performances. In 1923, The Green Goddess, by William Archer
William Archer
William Archer may refer to:* William S. Archer , U.S. Senator and Representative from Virginia* William Archer Irish naturalist and microscopist especially interested in Protozoa and Desmids...
, started its run of 417 performances. Sir Gerald du Maurier
Gerald du Maurier
Sir Gerald Hubert Edward Busson du Maurier was an English actor and manager. He was the son of the writer George du Maurier and brother of Sylvia Llewelyn Davies. In 1902, he married the actress Muriel Beaumont with whom he had three daughters: Angela du Maurier , Daphne du Maurier and Jeanne...
was actor-manager of the St James's for several years in the 1920s and 1930s. He had appeared there as Lord Arthur Dilling in The Last of Mrs. Cheyney by Frederick Lonsdale
Frederick Lonsdale
Frederick Lonsdale was an English dramatist.-Personal life:Lonsdale was born Lionel Frederick Leonard in St Helier, Jersey, the son of Susan and John Henry Leonard, a tobacconist. He began as a private soldier and worked for the London and South Western Railway...
(1925), which ran for 514 performances, being succeeded in that role by Henry Daniell
Henry Daniell
Henry Daniell was an English actor, best known for his villainous movie roles, but who had a long and prestigious career on stage as well as in films....
. Interference (1927), by Ronald Pertwee and Harold Dearden was another big success and ran for 412 performances. Daniell appeared again at the St James's in 1928 as Satollyon in The Return Journey and in 1932 as Max Lawrence in The Vinegar Tree. In 1929, Alfred Lunt
Alfred Lunt
Alfred Lunt was an American stage director and actor, often identified for a long-time professional partnership with his wife, actress Lynn Fontanne...
made his London debut with his wife Lynn Fontanne
Lynn Fontanne
Lynn Fontanne was a British actress and major stage star in the United States for over 40 years. She teamed with her husband Alfred Lunt.She lived in the United States for more than 60 years but never relinquished her British citizenship. Lunt and Fontanne shared a special Tony Award in 1970...
in the Theatre Guild production of Caprice. A number of very successful plays ran at the theatre in the 1930s and 1940s, including Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
's Ten Little..., which was interrupted when a bomb damaged the roof of the theatre in 1944.
Last years
Other famous actors who performed at the theatre included Charles Wyndham, William TerrissWilliam Terriss
William Terriss was an English actor, known for his swashbuckling hero roles, such as Robin Hood, and in Shakespeare plays, and for his murder outside a London theatre. His daughter was the Edwardian musical comedy star Ellaline Terriss.-Life and career:Terriss's real name was William Charles...
, J. L. Toole, Rutland Barrington
Rutland Barrington
Rutland Barrington was an English singer, actor, comedian, and Edwardian musical comedy star. Best remembered for originating the lyric baritone roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas from 1877 to 1896, his performing career spanned more than four decades...
(who became bankrupt managing the theatre for a time), Henry Ainley
Henry Ainley
Henry Hinchliffe Ainley was an English Shakespearean stage and screen actor. He was married three times to Susanne Sheldon, Elaine Fearon and the novelist Bettina Riddle, later Baroness von Hutten zum Stolzenberg...
(who briefly co-managed with Gilbert Miller
Gilbert Miller
Gilbert Heron Miller was an American theatrical producer.Born in New York City, he was the son of English-born theatrical producer Henry Miller and Bijou Heron, a former child actress. Raised and educated in Europe, he returned home to follow in his father's footsteps and became a highly...
), Claude Rains
Claude Rains
Claude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 66 years. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them the title role in The Invisible Man , a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Mr...
, Charles Hawtrey, and Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
. Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
and his wife Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh, Lady Olivier was an English actress. She won the Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire , a role she also played on stage in London's West End, as well as for her portrayal of the southern belle Scarlett O'Hara, alongside Clark...
took over the management of the theatre in 1950, opening with Christopher Fry
Christopher Fry
Christopher Fry was an English playwright. He is best known for his verse dramas, notably The Lady's Not for Burning, which made him a major force in theatre in the 1940s and 1950s.-Early life:...
’s new play, Venus Observed. In 1951, they produced and starred in an ambitious production of both Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra
Caesar and Cleopatra (play)
Caesar and Cleopatra, a play written in 1898 by George Bernard Shaw, was first staged in 1901 and first published with Captain Brassbound's Conversion and The Devil's Disciple in his 1901 collection, Three Plays for Puritans. It was first performed at Newcastle-on-Tyne on March 15, 1899...
and Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra
Antony and Cleopatra
Antony and Cleopatra is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607. It was first printed in the First Folio of 1623. The plot is based on Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives and follows the relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony...
for the Festival of Britain
Festival of Britain
The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition in Britain in the summer of 1951. It was organised by the government to give Britons a feeling of recovery in the aftermath of war and to promote good quality design in the rebuilding of British towns and cities. The Festival's centrepiece was in...
. In 1954, a Terence Rattigan
Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan CBE was one of England's most popular 20th-century dramatists. His plays are generally set in an upper-middle-class background...
play, Separate Tables
Separate Tables
Separate Tables is the collective name of two one-act plays written by Sir Terence Rattigan, both taking place in the Beauregard Private Hotel, Bournemouth, a seaside town on the south coast of England. The first play, entitled "Table by the Window", focuses on the troubled relationship between a...
, commenced a run of 726 performances, a record for this theatre. The play (actually two one-act plays, both taking place in the same setting at a Hotel in Bournemouth
Bournemouth
Bournemouth is a large coastal resort town in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. According to the 2001 Census the town has a population of 163,444, making it the largest settlement in Dorset. It is also the largest settlement between Southampton and Plymouth...
, a seaside town on the south coast of England) was intended to star Olivier and Leigh, but scheduling did not permit this, and the plays starred Margaret Leighton and Eric Portman
Eric Portman
Eric Portman was a distinguished English stage and film actor...
.
In 1957, St James's Theatre was scheduled for demolition. Leigh and Olivier led a nation-wide campaign to try to save the historic theatre, involving street marches and a protest in the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
. A motion was carried against the Government in that house, but it was of no avail. However, the London County Council
London County Council
London County Council was the principal local government body for the County of London, throughout its 1889–1965 existence, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today known as Inner London and was replaced by the Greater London Council...
ordered that no further theatres would be demolished in central London without a planned replacement. An office building, St. James's House, was built on the theatre's site. It incorporates sculptured balcony fronts on each floor above the entrance. Four bas-relief panels by Edward Bainbridge Copnall
Edward Bainbridge Copnall
Edward Bainbridge Copnall MBE was a British sculptor.Son of photographer Edward White Copnall, Bainbridge Copnall was born in Cape Town, South Africa and was moved to Horsham at an early age...
depict the heads of Gilbert Miller, George Alexander, Oscar Wilde, and the Oliviers.
External links
- St James's Theatre History With many archive images and original programmes.
- Profile and images of the theatre
- Theatre timeline and images