The Playhouse Theatre in London is a west end theatre in the City of Westminster situated in Northumberland Avenue near Trafalgar Square. The Theatre was built by F. H. Fowler and Hill with a seating capacity of 1,200. The theare was rebuilt in 1907 and still retains its original substage machinery. Its current seating capacity is now 786.
Built by Sefton Henry Parry as the Royal Avenue Theatre, it opened on 11th March 1882 with 679 seats. The first production at the theatre was Jaques Offenbach's. In its early seasons, the theatre generally hosted comic operas, farces and burlesques. For much of this time, the low comedian Arthur Roberts, a popular star of music halls, starred at the theatre. By the 1890s, the theatre was presenting drama, and in 1894 Annie Horniman, the tea heiress, anonymously sponsored the actress Florence Farr in a season of plays at the theatre. Farr's first production was unsuccessful, and so she prevailed upon her friend,George Bernard Shaw to hurry and make his debut in the west end at the theatre with Arms And The Man in 1894. It was successful enough to allow him to discontinue music criticism to focus full time on play writing.
The Playhouse was rebuilt in 1905 to the designs of Blow and Billerey. During the work, part of the roof of the adjacent Charing Cross Station collapsed. The roof and girders fell across the train lines but part of the western wall of the station also fell and crashed through the roof and wall of the theatre. This resulted in the deaths of three people in the station, and three workmen on the theatre site and injuries to many more. The theatre was repaired and re-opened as The Playhouse Theatre on 28th January 1907 with a one-act play called The drums Of Oudh and a play called Toddles. The new theatre had a smaller seating capacity of 679.
W. Somerset Maugham's Home And Beauty premièred at the Playhouse on 30th August 1919, running for 235 performances, and Henry Daniell appeared here in February 1926 as the Prince of Karaslavia in Mr Abdulla. Nigel Bruce appeared in February 1927 as Robert Crosbie in Somerset Maugham's The Letter, and again in May 1930 as Robert Brennan in Dishonoured Lady. Alec Guiness made his stage début here in Ward Dorane's play Libel on 2nd April 1934. Henry Daniell returned in November that year to play the part of Paul Miller in Hurricane.
In 1951 the theatre was taken over and used as a recording studio for live performances by the BBC. The Goon Show. and the radio versions of both Steptoe And Son and Hancock's Half Hour were recorded there, although at least the first two shows were recorded at other venues during their runs. The stage also hosted live performances by rock bands including Led Zeppelin, Kiss, Queen, The Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
When the BBC left in 1976, the theatre went dark and was in danger of demolition, but it was saved and restored to its 1907 design by impressario Robin Gonshaw and opened again in October 1987 with the musical Girlfriends.
In 1988 the novelist and politician Jeffrey Archer bought the Playhouse for just over £1 million, and the following year, the theatre was offered commercial sponsorship by a financial services' company, and for a while it was known as the MI Group Playhouse. In 1991 the Playhouse became home to the Peter Hall Company, and a number of critically and commercially successful plays were performed there. It was around this time that the basement bar area of the theatre was converted into a private restaurant, Shaws, though this didn't prove successful and the space was later converted back into a cafe/bar.
In 1992 Jeffrey Archer sold the Playhouse to the writer and impressario Ray Cooney for just over £2 million. That year Cooney staged the West End premier of his latest farce It Runs In The Family at the Playhouse which was followed by Jane Eyre in 1993, On Approval in 1994, and Ray Cooney's Funny Money in 1995.
In 1996 Cooney sold the Playhouse to American investment banker Patrick Sulaiman Cole whose first production was the critically acclaimed revival ofIpsen's A Dolls House. Later that year the theatre was closed for a complete refurbishment under the direction of English Heritage; and reopened in 1997 with Mr. Sulaiman Cole's production and the West End première of Anton Chekhov's The Wood Demon This was followed by Sulaiman Cole's production of a first ever West End Snoo Wilson premier, "HRH," a play directed by Simon Callow, about the Royal Family's Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and, which opened the day after the tragic death of Princess Diana in 1997.. The play was harshly reviewed as anti-Royal, and the theatre returned to life as a commercial receiving house with several seasons of Almeida Theatre and Cheek by Jowl productions.
Successes at the Playhouse since the late 1990s have included Naked in 1998, J.B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls and Journey's End. American theatrical producers Ted and Norman Tulchin's Maidstone Productions purchased the theatre at the end of 2002, and the venue is being managed by the Ambassadors Theatre Group. Recent successes at the Playhouse include the musical Dancing In The Streets and the Adventures Of Tintin based on the famous comic-book boy detective, The current production showing at the Playhouse Theatre is Dreamboats and Petticoats, a jukebox feelgood musical based on the best-selling album series of the same title.
Theatre tickets to all performances at the Playhouse Theatre in London are available to book securely through this website.
bygone and golden era featuring rock n' roll music that will have you rolling back the years and dancing in the aisles
Berry, Billy Fury and many more.
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