The Queen's Theatre opened on 8 October 1907, almost 10 months after its twin, the Gielgud Theatre, on the adjoining corner of Shaftesbury Avenue. The architect for both was W.G.R. Sprague, the Queen's being the seventh West End theatre he had designed in addition to many outside London. Seating over 1,000 it was slightly larger than the Gielgud and like most theatres at the time exhibited a combination of architectural styles and influences, the most predominant being what was then termed the 'Edwardian Renaissance' style. The Illustrated London News wrote, the 'new Queen's Theatre, thanks to its imposing facade, makes a real addition to London's architecture, and internally, with its green upholstery and its white and gold scheme of decoration, proves one of the cosiest of our playhouses'. It was only after some debate that it was called the Queen's and a portrait of Queen Alexandra was hung above the fireplace in the grand entrance foyer. An earlier idea was to call it the Central Theatre, leading Bernard Shaw to remark, 'as if it were a criminal court or a railway terminus'.
The Queen's theatre opening was not as auspicious as was hoped, the first show, Sugar Bowl, a comedy by Madeleine Lucette Riley, only ran for 36 performances and was quickly followed by an assortment of equally short-lived plays and comedies. In 1909 Henry Brodribb Irving, Henry Irving's oldest son and his wife, the actress Dorothea Baird, took the lease on the theatre and presented some of the classic plays that had made his father famous such as Hamlet and The Bells .
Queens Theatre Tango Teas were a big hit in 1913. The stalls seats were removed and replaced with tables and chairs where afternoon tea was taken while watching the latest tango demonstration on stage, one of the dancers being a young Argentine whose parents thought he was in London studying Engineering.
It was not until April 1914 that the theatre had its first really successful play, Potash and Perlmutter by Montague Glass. These entertaining stories about two Jewish Americans living in New York moved away from the sentimental fare that had been presented all too frequently and despite the outbreak of war, found an appreciative audience for over 600 performances.
In 1919 Owen Nares joined Alfred Butt as lessee of the theatre. He was the heart throb of the day and over the next two years appeared in The House of Peril, The Cinderella Man and Mr Todd's Experiment.
The late 1920s brought two plays that created a sensation. Miles Malleson's anti-war piece The Fanatics, caused much controversy because it openly discussed sex and marital problems in a way never previously permitted by the Lord Chamberlain. The Trial of Mary Dugan, an American murder trial, proved compelling viewing and the scene was set by altering both the inside and outside of the theatre to resemble an American Court of Law.
The newly founded Malvern Theatre Company brought their production of Shaw's The Apple Cart to the Queen's in 1929 with Edith Evans as Orinthia and Cedric Hardwicke as Magnus. This was shortly followed by John Gielgud's first West End appearance in the role he made almost his own, Hamlet, with Donald Wolfit as Claudius.
Queens Theatre Short Story, the first of eight plays written by the actor Robert Morley, starred Sybil Thorndike, Margaret Rutherford and a young Rex Harrison and, in an era when the theatre positively glittered with stars, was followed in 1936 by the first world war play Red Night, marking Robert Donat's debut as an actor-manager and John Mills' West End debut as Private Syd Summers. Among the many other celebrities who brought glamour to the Queen's in the 20s and 30s were Fred and Adele Astaire in Stop Flirting, Tallulah Bankhead in the romantic drama Conchita, Jack Hawkins in Ivor Novello's musical comedy, Sunshine Sisters, and Gertrude Lawrence and Douglas Fairbanks Junior in the 'ultra-modern problem play', Moonlight in Silver.
A highly distinguished company gathered for the Gielgud season in 1937-38. Gielgud presented four plays - Richard II, The Merchant of Venice, The School for Scandal and Three Sisters - with casts including Michael Redgrave, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quayle, Leon Quartermaine, George Devine, Glen Byam Shaw, Peggy Ashcroft and Rachel Kempson. It was a season of such significance that it is felt to have laid the foundation for the post-war development of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre.
Queen's Theatre
Shaftesbury Avenue, London, W1D 6BA.
0844 482 5160
How to get there to Queen's Theatre
Train to Queen's Theatre
Charing Cross (approx. 550m)
Tube to Queen's Theatre
Piccadilly Circus (approx. 250m)
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