|
Criterion Theatre
The Criterion Theatre is a West End theatre at Piccadilly Circus in the City of Westminster, and is a Grade II* listed building. It has a seating capacity of 588. Building the theatre In 1870, the caterers Spiers and Pond began development of the site of the White Bear, a seventeenth-century posting inn. The inn was located on sloping ground stretching between Jermyn Street and Piccadilly Circus, known as Regent Circus. A competition was held for the design of a concert hall complex, with Thomas Verity winning out of 15 entries. He was commissioned to design a large restaurant, dining rooms, ballroom, and galleried concert hall in the basement. The frontage, which was the façade of the restaurant, showed a French Renaissance influence using Portland stone. After the building work began, it was decided to change the concert hall into a theatre. The composers' names, which line the tiled staircases, were retained and can still be seen. The redesign placed the large Criter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jermyn Street
Jermyn Street is a One-way traffic, one-way street in the St James's area of the City of Westminster in London, England. It is to the south of, parallel, and adjacent to Piccadilly. Jermyn Street is known as a street for gentlemen's-clothing retailers in the West End of London, West End. History In around 1664, the street was created by and named after Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St Albans, as part of his development of the St James's area of central London. It was first recorded as "Jarman Streete" in the 1667 rate books of St Martin's, which listed 56 properties on it. In 1675, there were 108 names listed. Notable residents Many tailors owned or still own the houses along the street and often let rooms to people. 22 Jermyn Street, No. 22, Jermyn Street, for instance was once owned by Italian silk merchant Cesare Salvucci and a military tailor who rented rooms out to people such as the banker Rothschild banking family of England, Theodore Rothschild. The John Churchill, 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Edgar Pemberton
Thomas Edgar Pemberton (1 July 1849 – 28 September 1905) was an English novelist, playwright and theatrical historian. Early career Born on 1 July 1849, he was the eldest son of Thomas Pemberton, the head of an old-established firm of brass founders in Livery Street, Birmingham. A brother was the novelist Max Pemberton. (The earlier actor and lecturer Charles Reece Pemberton was of the same family.) After education at schools in Edgbaston, Pemberton at nineteen entered his father's firm, and in due course gained control of the business, with which he was connected until 1900. Pemberton married on 11 March 1873, in the Old Meeting House, Birmingham, Mary Elizabeth, second daughter of Edward Richard Patie Townley of Edgbaston. Of literary taste from youth, Pemberton long divided his time between commerce and varied literary endeavours. His novels ''Charles Lysaght: a Novel devoid of Novelty'' (1873) and ''Under Pressure'' (1874) were less well regarded than his later novel ''A Ve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan (10 June 191130 November 1977) was a British dramatist and screenwriter. He was one of England's most popular mid-20th-century dramatists. His plays are typically set in an upper-middle-class background.Geoffrey Wansell. ''Terence Rattigan'' (London: Fourth Estate, 1995); He wrote ''The Winslow Boy'' (1946), '' The Browning Version'' (1948), '' The Deep Blue Sea'' (1952) and '' Separate Tables'' (1954), among many others. A troubled gay man who saw himself as an outsider, Rattigan wrote a number of plays which centred on issues of sexual frustration, failed relationships, or a world of repression and reticence. Early life Terence Rattigan was born in 1911 in South Kensington,Wansell, p. 13. London, of Irish extraction. He had an elder brother, Brian. They were the grandsons of Sir William Henry Rattigan, a notable India-based jurist and later a Liberal Unionist Member of Parliament for North-East Lanarkshire. His father was Frank Rattigan CMG, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud ( ; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. A member of the Terry family theatrical dynasty, he gained his first paid acting work as a junior member of his cousin Phyllis Neilson-Terry's company in 1922. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), he worked in repertory theatre and in the West End theatre, West End before establishing himself at the Old Vic as an exponent of Shakespeare in 1929–31. During the 1930s Gielgud was a stage star in the West End and on Broadway theatre, Broadway, appearing in new works and classics. He began a parallel career as a director, and set up his own company at the Sondheim Theatre, Queen's Theatre, London. He was regarded by many as the finest Prince Hamlet, Hamlet of his era, and was also k ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Empire, Leicester Square
The Empire, Leicester Square is a cinema currently operated by Cineworld on the north side of Leicester Square, London, England. The Empire was originally built in 1884 as a variety theatre and was rebuilt for films in the 1920s. It is one of several cinemas in and adjoining Leicester Square which are regularly used for film premieres and first runs. Today, it has nine auditoria, including an IMAX, a Superscreen and a 4DX screen. History 1884: The Empire Theatre opens The Empire Theatre opened on 17 April 1884 under the ownership of Daniel Nicols as a West End variety theatre on Leicester Square, as well as a ballet venue, with a capacity of about 2,000 seats. The first performance was '' Chilpéric'', with music by Hervé, adapted by H. Hersee and H. B. Farnie and described as ''a Grand Musical Spectacular, in three acts and seven tableaux''. The corps de ballet for the performance was 50 strong. Edward Solomon and Sydney Grundy premièred their comic opera, ''Pocaho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comedy Theatre
The Harold Pinter Theatre, known as the Comedy Theatre until 2011,"Harold Pinter has London theatre named after him" ''BBC News'', 7 September 2011, accessed 8 September 2011. is a , and opened on Panton Street in the , on 15 October 1881, as the Royal Comedy Theatre. It was designed by Thomas Verity and built in just six months in painted ( |
Noël Coward Theatre
The Noël Coward Theatre, formerly known as the Albery Theatre, is a West End theatre in St. Martin's Lane in the City of Westminster, London. It opened on 12 March 1903 as the New Theatre and was built by Sir Charles Wyndham behind Wyndham's Theatre which was completed in 1899. The building was designed by the architect W. G. R. Sprague with an exterior in the classical style and an interior in the Rococo style. In 1973, it was renamed the Albery Theatre in tribute to Sir Bronson Albery who had presided as its manager for many years. Since September 2005, the theatre has been owned by Delfont-Mackintosh Ltd. It underwent major refurbishment in 2006 and was renamed the Noël Coward Theatre when it re-opened on 1 June 2006. The building is a Grade II Listed structure. History Early years, 1903–1919 The New was the second of the three theatres in St Martin's Lane. The Trafalgar Square (now the Duke of York's) opened in 1892 and the London Coliseum in 1904. The actor-ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wyndham's Theatre
Wyndham's Theatre is a West End theatre, one of two opened by actor/manager Charles Wyndham (the other is the Criterion Theatre). Located on Charing Cross Road in the City of Westminster, it was designed c. 1898 by W. G. R. Sprague, the architect of six other London theatres between then and 1916. It was designed to seat 759 patrons on three levels; later refurbishment increased this to four seating levels. The theatre was Grade II* listed by English Heritage in September 1960. History Wyndham had always dreamed of building a theatre of his own, and through the admiration of a patron and the financial confidence of friends, he was able to realise his dream. Wyndham's Theatre opened on 16 November 1899, in the presence of the Prince of Wales. The first play performed there was a revival of T. W. Robertson's ''David Garrick''. A number of successes followed, including Lena Ashwell playing the lead role in '' Mrs Dane's Defence'' in 1900, upon which Wyndham said that “''the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Wyndham (actor)
Sir Charles Wyndham (23 March 1837 – 12 January 1919), ''né'' Charles Culverwell, was an English actor and theatre proprietor. Wyndham's Theatre in London is named after him, and he also built the Noël Coward Theatre, New Theatre (now the Noël Coward Theatre) nearby. Wyndham's family intended him for a medical career, and he studied medicine while enthusiastically engaging in amateur theatricals in his spare time. Torn between medicine and the stage, he spent three years in the US as a surgeon in the Union army in the American Civil War and on two occasions acted unsuccessfully on the New York stage. After returning to Britain and establishing himself as an actor he made further trips to the US between 1882 and 1910, playing in theatres all around the country. In London, Wyndham became known for his comic skills, both in light comedy and farce. He took over the management of the Criterion Theatre in 1876 and remained in charge there for more than 20 years. "Criterion f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edwardian Musical Comedies
Edwardian musical comedy is a genre of British musical theatre that thrived from 1892 into the 1920s, extending beyond the reign of King Edward VII in both directions. It began to dominate the English musical stage, and even the American musical theatre, when the Gilbert and Sullivan operas' dominance had ended, until the rise of American musicals by Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, George Gershwin and Cole Porter following the World War I, First World War. Between ''In Town (musical), In Town'' in 1892 and ''The Maid of the Mountains'', premiering in 1917, this new style of musical theatre proliferated across the musical stages of Britain and the rest of the English-speaking world. The popularity of ''In Town'' and ''A Gaiety Girl'' (1893), led to an astonishing number of hits over the next three decades, into the 1920s, the most successful of which included ''The Shop Girl'' (1894), ''The Geisha'' (1896), ''Florodora'' (1899), ''A Chinese Honeymoon'' (1901), ''The Earl and the Gi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Grossmith, Jr
George Grossmith Jr. (11 May 1874 – 6 June 1935) was an English actor, theatre producer and Actor-manager, manager, director, playwright and songwriter, best remembered for his work in and with Edwardian musical comedies. Grossmith was also an important innovator in bringing "cabaret" and "revues" to the London stage. Born in London, he took his first role on the musical stage at the age of 18 in ''Haste to the Wedding'' (1892), a West End theatre, West End collaboration between his famous George Grossmith, songwriter and actor father and W. S. Gilbert. Grossmith soon became an audience favourite playing "dude" roles. Early appearances in musicals included George Edwardes's hit ''A Gaiety Girl'' in 1893, and ''Go-Bang'' and ''The Shop Girl'' in 1894. In 1895, Grossmith left the musical stage, instead appearing in straight comedies, but after a few years he returned to performing in musicals and Victorian burlesques. Early in the new century, he had a string of successes in mus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Grossmith
George Grossmith (9 December 1847 – 1 March 1912) was an English comedian, writer, composer, actor, and singer. His performing career spanned more than four decades. As a writer and composer, he created 18 comic operas, nearly 100 musical sketches, some 600 songs and piano pieces, three books and both serious and comic pieces for newspapers and magazines. Grossmith created a series of nine characters in the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan from 1877 to 1889, including Sir Joseph Porter, in '' H.M.S. Pinafore'' (1878), the Major-General in ''The Pirates of Penzance'' (1880) and Ko-Ko in ''The Mikado'' (1885–87). He also wrote, in collaboration with his brother Weedon, the 1892 comic novel '' The Diary of a Nobody''. Grossmith was also famous in his day for performing his own comic piano sketches and songs, both before and after his Gilbert and Sullivan days, becoming the most popular British solo performer of the 1890s. Some of his comic songs endure today, including ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
