Greenwich Theatre

Greenwich Theatre is a local theatre located in Croom's Hill close to the centre of Greenwich in south-east London.

Greenwich Theatre
1855 Rose and Crown Music Hall
1871 Crowder's Music Hall
1879 Royal Borough Theatre of Varieties
1898 Parthenon Theatre of Varieties
1912 Greenwich Hippodrome
The two facades of the theatre, to either side of the Rose and Crown pub, 2007
LocationGreenwich
London, SE10
United Kingdom
Coordinates51.479722°N 0.008333°W / 51.479722; -0.008333
Public transit Greenwich
Capacity421
ProductionVisiting productions
Construction
Opened1969 (1969)
Rebuilt1871, 1898, 1969
Website
greenwichtheatre.org.uk

Theatre first came to Greenwich at the beginning of the 19th century during the famous Eastertide Greenwich Fair at which the Richardson travelling theatre annually performed. The current Greenwich Theatre is the heir to two former traditions. It stands on the site of the Rose and Crown Music Hall built in 1855 on Crooms Hill at the junction with Nevada Street. But it takes its name from the New Greenwich Theatre built in 1864 by Sefton Parry on London Street, opposite what was then the terminus of the London and Greenwich Railway.[1]

Richardson's travelling theatre

At the beginning of the 19th century, Richardson's travelling theatre made its annual tented appearance during the famous Eastertide Greenwich Fair. In Sketches by Boz, Charles Dickens reminisced enthusiastically, “you have a melodrama (with three murders and a ghost), a pantomime, a comic song, an overture, and some incidental music, all done in five-and-twenty minutes.”[2]

In 1842, The Era reported that performances at Richardson's theatre attracted upwards of 15,000 people.

The Fair was closed down in 1853 “in consequence of the drunkenness and debauchery (it) occasioned, and the numerous convictions of pickpockets that took place before the police magistrates”.

On at least two subsequent occasions, the Greenwich Theatre celebrated its Richardson heritage. In April 1868 at Eleanor Bufton's first night as manager, she recited a poem written for the occasion, weaving the Richardson saga around her own. Five years later, at Easter 1873, lessee and manager Mr J. A. Cave reproduced Richardson's performances as closely as possible and even brought back Paul Herring, veteran clown of the 1820s Fair.[3]

There are also two later newspaper references to a theatre in Greenwich that was burnt down around 1835 but no other details are given.[4][5]

Greenwich Theatre 1864–1911

Sefton Parry
See also: Sefton Henry Parry

After extensive experience as actor/comedian travelling the world and manager/theatre builder in South Africa, Sefton Parry built his first English theatre on a vacant site on London Street (now Greenwich High Road) at Greenwich. It opened in May 1864 with seating for 1000 people. He promised that the style of performance would be similar to that of the old Adelphi, but there would be improvements to suit contemporary taste that made the most of the latest skills and recent inventions. His aim was to attract the highest class of residents by superior pieces carefully acted by a thoroughly efficient company. His first recruits were Bessie Foote from the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, Eliza Hamilton from the Theatre Royal, Sadler's Wells, Sallie Turner eldest daughter of Henry Jameson Turner of the Royal Strand, Josephine Ruth from the Theatre Royal, Portsmouth, and Marion Foote; also Messrs. Frank Barsby from the Theatre Royal, Brighton, W. Foote from the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh), E. Danvers from the Royal Strand Theatre, and Mr Westland. On opening night The Era described it as 'perhaps the most elegant Theatre within twenty miles of London'[6]

Initially christened the New Greenwich Theatre, it subsequently acquired several new names including Theatre Royal, New Prince of Wales’s Theatre, Morton's Theatre and Carlton Theatre. Even so, it continued to be known as the Greenwich Theatre, and was still recorded as such in 1911 before becoming a cinema. The alternative name Theatre Royal, Greenwich emerged as early as 1865 and was used in The Era as late as December 1902. It remained in Parry's ownership until his death in December 1887 when ownership was transferred to the Sefton Parry Trust.[7] It was sold by auction as the 'Greenwich Theatre' in 1909.[8]

The next managers

Parry was soon involved in building further theatres in London. By September 1866, William Sydney (who also managed theatres in Richmond, Norwich & Stockton) had become the lessee and manager, and Herbert Masson his Musical Director. W. J. Hurlstone, who had been Acting Manager for Parry, was re-engaged in the same role.[9]

By 1867 the lessee was Mr Mowbray, and the manageress, Miss Fanny Hazlewood. Her agent was Henry Jameson Turner whose agency had at one time acted for Parry.[10] At the end of Fanny Hazlewood's short tenure before she went to America there were serious issues of non-payment of rent and wages.

Swanborough family

The Swanborough family,[11] who managed the Royal Strand Theatre from 1858 to 1883, popular for its burlesque, were the next lessees of the Greenwich Theatre.[12] On 11 April 1868, the theatre opened for the season under the new management of the Welsh actress, Miss Eleanor Bufton (Mrs Arthur Swanborough) . The house had been entirely renovated and redecorated.

Eleanor Bufton recited a poem in typical burlesque style, written for her opening night, that recalled the days of Richardson’s travelling theatre at the Greenwich Fair and included the lines:

No matter what the rival shows might be,
Richardson's held, o'er all, supremacy;
Asserting o'er men's minds the Drama's pow'r
With play and pantomime, four times an hour!
The Drama, then, in tent of canvas pent,
Though, in low booth, upheld its high in-tent!
And, 'midst the outside Fair's discordant din,
It cried "Walk up! - just going to begin.

The poem also made topical allusions to John Stuart Mill and the women's suffrage movement.[13]

By February 1871, the management had been taken on by Frederick Belton. In August of that year, Eleanor Bufton was involved in a serious railway accident which affected her memory and interfered with her career.[14]

Continuity and decline

In 1872 Mr J A Cave took out a long lease from Sefton Parry and made considerable alterations and improvements before his opening night. He promised that admission prices would be materially reduced without in any way reducing the quality of the entertainment. He said that twenty years of past successes had proved the value of full houses at moderate prices. Additionally, for those who could afford higher prices, ample accommodation would be provided.

After Cave's time the theatre gradually sank to a lower and lower level and "a once prosperous place was reduced to utter ruin by the incompetence and mismanagement of the speculators".[15] Those speculating managers included Mr Robertson, Mr H C Sidney, Mrs W Lovegrove & Mr George Villiers, and Mr D M'Intosh. In the autumn of 1879 J Aubrey, then Sole Lessee and Manager, soon after presenting his Christmas pantomime was made bankrupt.[16]

William Morton
See also: William Morton (theatre manager) § Greenwich Theatre

In 1884, Parry identified William Morton as the man to take over his ruined theatre. Morton's first theatrical success had been to launch and sustain the careers of the renowned magicians Maskelyne and Cooke at the Egyptian Hall and was also currently managing the thousand-seater New Cross Public Hall. In May that year, Morton took on the lease of the Greenwich Theatre with an option to buy at a specified date and price.[17] Once reconstructed and redecorated, Morton proposed to rename as the New Prince of Wales's Theatre. He intended, if possible, to meet the growing demand for good dramatic performances in south-east London.[18]

Morton devoted sixteen years to running the Greenwich Theatre, investing his own money, and rightly claimed that by engaging some of the best of the touring companies such as D’Oyly Carte, he turned a derelict property into something that mattered. He was often called 'the Greenwich Morton' to distinguish him from others of the same name. He boasted that Greenwich was the only temperance theatre in the whole of London.[19] By 1892, he was involved in many other theatres around the country, including acting as the Sefton Parry Trust's representative and personal agent for all their properties.[20] In 1895, he took on the lease of Parry's Theatre Royal in Hull and later purchased it.[21]

Morton engaged Ellen Terry at a guaranteed fee in order to gain prestige for the theatre, knowing that he was bound to make a loss. At 'Treasury' Ellen Terry asked the manager for a statement of the total receipts, and, realising that Morton would have a serious loss, magnanimously said she would accept only a net share, the only instance, said Morton, of any one who offered to take less than their 'pound of flesh'.[17]

Dan Leno was involved in a minor drama on the evening of 12 December 1895. Double-booked in Greenwich and Brighton, he was whisked off the Greenwich stage at 10.10 pm, bundled into a cab to New Cross Station where a specially chartered train took him to Brighton. Within 90 minutes he was on the stage of the Alhambra.[22]

There were several name changes during Morton's time. New, as is customary, was soon dropped. Later it became 'Morton’s Prince of Wales’s Theatre' to distinguish it from a new London theatre bearing the same name but whose letters and telegrams were getting mixed up with theirs. After renovations in 1891, he reopened as Morton's Model Theatre,then called it The Model House and Temperance Theatre, finally around 1898/99 simplifying the name to an earlier usage as Morton's Theatre. By this time, he was the owner. In 1897 he produced plans to build a new theatre seating 3000 on a nearby vacant site but this was never followed through. In 1904 he moved to Hull where in 1934 at the age of 96 he published his memoirs.[17] He attributed his health in old age to hard work, regular habits and an abstemious diet.[23]

Final years

After Sefton Parry's death in 1887, the ownership of his theatres was transferred to the Sefton Parry Trust. William Morton eventually purchased the Greenwich Theatre outright, then, In April 1900, sold it to Arthur Carlton[24] who named it the Carlton Theatre. It remained so until about 1909. During the final twelve months the entertainment had become mainly of the music hall type. The building was auctioned in 1909. By now the cinema revolution[25] had taken full hold and by 1914 it had become the Cinema de Luxe managed by H Morris of Cinema Palaces Ltd.[26]

The building was demolished in 1937 to make way for a new Town Hall, now a listed building and under new ownership and renamed Meridian House.[27]

Crooms Hill site, 1855 - present time

Rose and Crown 1855

The site of the current Greenwich Theatre was originally a music hall created in 1855 as modest appendages to, or rooms within, the neighbouring Rose and Crown public house.[28] It was licensed to John Green and known as the Rose and Crown Music Hall.[29]

Crowder's Music Hall

In 1871 it was reconstructed by Charles Spencer Crowder and renamed Crowder's Music Hall with a separate entrance on Nevada Street. According to reports of the time, it was a splendid building boasting a new stage, ''equal to many of the West End theatres'', and a new lavatory! The architect was W R Hough.

It briefly rejoiced in the name 'Crowder's Music Hall and Temple of Varieties' but in 1879 was renamed by the new owner, Alfred Ambrose Hurley, as the Royal Borough Theatre of Varieties.

Parthenon et al

In 1898 it was rebuilt to the designs of John George Buckle, possibly for a Mr Hancock, and became the Parthenon Theatre of Varieties. The plaster façade can still be seen on Nevada Street today. It later became the Greenwich Palace of Varieties,

The theatre's entrance on Crooms Hill dates from about 1902 when Samuel and Daniel Barnard took over and it became Barnard's Palace. It finally became the Greenwich Hippodrome. Playbills of the time mention star names such as Harry Champion and Lily Langtree, with more dramatic performances with spectacular effects projected by the latest attraction – the Edisonograph.[28]

It showed both live performances and films as the Greenwich Hippodrome Picture Palace from 1915 until 1924 when it lost its licence for live entertainment and was converted into a cinema.[28]

During the Second World War, the theatre was re-opened as a repertory theatre with films on Sundays, but when an incendiary bomb crashed through the roof into the auditorium the theatre was closed and remained empty, occasionally being used for storage. In 1949, the building was closed.

Greenwich Theatre 1969–present

Greenwich Council bought the site for demolition in 1962, but agreed to support the idea of a new theatre if there was enough local enthusiasm to justify it. Ewan Hooper, a local actor and director, accepted the challenge of rallying support. A new building was designed by architect Brian Meeking[30] within the old shell and it eventually reopened as the Greenwich Theatre in 1969.[29]

It had to survive a further crisis in the late 1990s prompted by the 1997 withdrawal of its annual subsidy from the London Arts Board. It eventually reopened in November 1999.

The seating capacity is currently 421, around an open thrust stage.

Theatrical history 1969–present

On 21 October 1969 the theatre re-opened with Martin Luther King, a new piece of musical theatre written by Ewan Hooper, Artistic Director.[31] Alan Vaughan Williams directed.

From 1969, the theatre became a showcase for many new dramatic works. Early plays included Chekhov's Three Sisters and Jean Genet's The Maids,[32] featuring Glenda Jackson, Susannah York and Vivien Merchant - many of the Greenwich cast featured in the subsequent film version. In 1975, Vivien Merchant and Timothy Dalton headed the cast of a revival of Noël Coward's The Vortex.[33] Greenwich Theatre also saw the première of John Mortimer's A Voyage Round My Father[34] and, on 5 November 1981, Rupert Everett appeared in the 1981 première of Another Country - another play which successfully transferred to celluloid,[35] having also won accolades in the West End.

In 2009, the theatre returned to producing, collaborating with a new company, Stage on Screen, to stage and film plays, making them available on DVD for theatre lovers and students. The first two productions were Dr Faustus and The School for Scandal, followed in 2010 by Volpone and The Duchess of Malfi. (The School for Scandal had first been presented in Greenwich by William Morton in 1884.)[36]

In 2013, Sell a Door Theatre Company partnered with the Greenwich Theatre following nine productions at the South London venue. James Haddrell and David Hutchinson officially announced the partnership on 19 November 2013.[37]

In April 2015, it was announced that a revival of The Who's musical Tommy was to be performed at the venue, from 29 July to 23 August 2015, its first London run for over 20 years.[38]

See also

References
  1. The Era 29 May 1864, p 10 New Greenwich Theatre
  2. Dickens, Charles (1836). Sketches by Boz. London. pp. chapter 12.
  3. The Era, 1873
  4. South Eastern Gazette, 24 May 1864 p. 5 Opening of a New Theatre
  5. London Daily News, 26 May 1864 p. 6 The New Greenwich Theatre.
  6. The Era, 29 May 1864, p.10 New Greenwich Theatre
  7. The Hull Daily Mail, February 27, 1895,The Royal Changes Hands
  8. The Era 1909
  9. The Era, 15 September 1866
  10. The Era, various in 1867
  11. "Swanborough family, Strand Theatre". www.sensationpress.com. Retrieved 2016-03-15.
  12. ‘Lost London Playhouses’, The Stage, 28 June 1923, p. 21.
  13. The Era, 19 April 1868, © 2016 Findmypast Newspaper Archive Limited
  14. Knight, John Joseph. Bufton, Eleanor (DNB01).
  15. The Era, 23 August 1884 p.10 The New Prince of Wales's
  16. "The Era". March 1880 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  17. Morton, William (1934). I Remember. (A Feat of Memory.). Market-place. Hull: Goddard. Walker and Brown. Ltd. pp. 65 ff.
  18. "The Era". 31 May 1884 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  19. "The Era". 4 December 1909.
  20. The Era, March 12, 1892 p.14 advertisement: W. Morton
  21. Hull Daily Mail, February 27, 1895 The Royal Changes Hands
  22. "The Era". 21 December 1895.
  23. The Era 30 January 1924 p.10
  24. Advert in The Era, 7 April 1900 p.16
  25. Cinema of the United Kingdom § History
  26. The London Project (Centre for British Film and Television Studies).
  27. Historic England. "The Borough Hall and Meridian House (former Greenwich Town Hall) (1213855)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 24 April 2020.
  28. "Offwestend.com Theatres - London United Kingdom (UK) - more on OffWestEnd.com - (Fullest details of Rose & Crown etc history)". www.offwestend.com. Retrieved 2016-03-13.
  29. "Greenwich Theatre - The Theatres Trust (supplementary details on architects, some conflicting with other source)". www.theatrestrust.org.uk. Retrieved 2016-03-14.
  30. Lawson, David (8 January 1993). "Property: And then there was light: Few people appreciate modern homes because they see them only from the outside. David Lawson looks inside two contemporary houses on the market". The Independent. Retrieved 19 February 2017.
  31. Haddrell, James. "Our History". www.greenwichtheatre.org.uk. Retrieved 2016-03-14.
  32. The Maids (1974) at IMDb
  33. "The Vortex (1975–1976)" Archived 2013-06-10 at the Wayback Machine, Timothy Dalton - Shakespearean James Bond, accessed June 28, 2012
  34. A Voyage Round My Father (1982) at IMDb
  35. Another Country (1984) at IMDb
  36. 'London Theatres', The Era, 23 August 1884 p. 10
  37. "Greenwich Theatre Partners with Sell a Door". The Stage. 19 November 2013.
  38. "The Who's Tommy has anniversary production at Greenwich Theatre this summer". Musical Theatre Review. 24 April 2015. Retrieved 15 July 2015.
  • Guide to British Theatres 1750-1950, John Earl and Michael Sell pp. 113–4 (Theatres Trust, 2000) ISBN 0-7136-5688-3
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