The Royalty Theatre
Previously Miss Kelly's, Royal Soho and New Royalty
Theatre
Demolished
From 1834–7 until 1955 the back part of the
sites of Nos. 73 and 74 Dean Street was occupied
by the theatre known latterly, until its closure in
1938, as the Royalty (fig. 52). It originated in an
attempt by the actress, Frances Maria Kelly
(1790–1882), to establish a dramatic academy,
and had a long tradition of actress-management.
The theatre was small, obscurely sited, perilously
combustible and rarely prosperous for long, but,
partly by reason of its consequent use for occasional
or independent ventures, it housed some productions of note.
The more southerly of the two houses on the
street frontage, No. 73, was Miss Kelly's house
and was occupied together with the theatre for
the whole period of the theatre's existence, but
No. 74 for only part of the time. The freehold of
both sites had been disposed of by the Crown in
1830, to Peter Thompson of Frith Street,
gentleman. (ref. 51)
In 1834 No. 73 was taken by Fanny Kelly as
her private residence. Miss Kelly was nearing
the end of her Drury Lane career and in the
previous year had essayed a season of one-woman
performances at the New Strand Theatre. (ref. 52) In
Dean Street she now devoted her savings to the
realization of an idea current among lovers of
the drama, the creation of a school of acting, with
a theatre attached. (ref. 53) In August 1834 she obtained
the first of a series of licences for daily dramatic
readings and twice-weekly theatrical performances at No. 73 from Michaelmas to the following
Easter. (ref. 54) The Lord Chamberlain, the sixth
Duke of Devonshire, was a friend of Miss Kelly's,
and to him she sent thanks for 'the Licence for
my School'. (ref. 55) In the same year she began to
build a small theatre, (ref. 56) approached through her
house and extending behind it and No. 74 (to
both of which sites she must be presumed to have
had a title). The architect was the leading theatre
practitioner, Samuel Beazley, a resident in Soho
Square. (ref. 57)
Figure 52:
Nos. 73 and 74 Dean Street (Miss Kelly's Theatre), plan in 1840. Redrawn from a plan in the Middlesex Land Register
The theatre was substantially finished by 1837.
In that year Miss Kelly appears as occupant also
of No. 74, (ref. 7) and in July she submitted to the Duke
of Devonshire, no longer Lord Chamberlain but
her continuing patron, an announcement of the
public opening of the theatre, which she then
intended to name in his honour. The announcement ran:
'The Duke's Theatre and Royal Dramatic
School. Miss Kelly has the honour to announce
to her pupils and Subscribers that she will commence a course of Private Lectures on the
Dramatic Art preparatory to opening her Theatre
to the Public in September next. The Teachers
of the Establishment will be in attendance on
Mondays and Thursdays for Elocution, Tuesdays
and Fridays for Vocal and Instrumental Music,
and on Wednesdays and Saturdays for Dancing,
Fencing, and Gymnastic Exercises.'
Miss Kelly also sought from the Duke 'an
audience of a few minutes for my Architect and
kind friend Mr. Beazley whose good taste and
nice feeling will briefly explain to Your Grace the
purpose so vital to my interest'. (ref. 58)
The public opening was, however, delayed, and
from spring 1838 to spring 1840 Miss Kelly
did not renew her licence. (ref. 59) This was perhaps on
account of the installation of a new type of stage
machinery, of all-metal construction. The inventor, (Sir) Rowland Macdonald Stephenson
(c. 1808–95), a civil engineer who was later
knighted and became Deputy-Chairman of the
East Indian Railway Company, (ref. 60) had exhibited
a model of his contrivance in the autumn of
1838. (ref. 61) It was patented in February 1840, (ref. 62)
and received considerable publicity. (ref. 63)
In January 1840 Miss Kelly was again ready
to announce the public opening of the 'Royal
Dramatic School and Theatre'. The printed
prospectus stated that her pupils would be instructed by 'Courses of Lectures, daily readings
and stage studies', while they would be enabled to
support themselves by 'a branch of the Establishment' devoted 'to the intellectual improvement,
and the industrious occupation of the youthful
pupils of both sexes; affording to each a fair proportion of the funds arising from their own exertions'. Annual subscribers of two guineas would
have privileged admission at public performances. (ref. 64) For an unknown reason Miss Kelly still
found herself in a 'painful and perplexing
position', (ref. 65) but the theatre was finally opened to
the public in May 1840 under a special licence
for performances in the following two months. (ref. 66)
On the opening night Miss Kelly expressed
the hope that the theatre would be one 'in which
the dialogue would at least be heard'. (ref. 67) There
was a relatively spacious stage, and Beazley's work
in the auditorium was thought pretty. The Times
described the theatre as 'most elegantly fitted up
and appointed, and painted in a light tasteful
manner. The pit is half occupied by chairs and
half by benches; the part corresponding to a gallery is considered as a tier of upper boxes, and the
lower tier has a distinguishing price'. (ref. 67) The
theatre was designed as a bijou for a fashionable
audience. A box was taken by Queen Adelaide,
and most of the others, according to a newspaper
puff, by 'the heads of our old aristocratic houses,
for themselves, and the youthful members of their
families, who, of course, can come and go as they
would to an apartment beneath the paternal roof'. (ref. 68)
An undated watercolour drawing in the London Museum is said on uncertain authority to
represent Miss Kelly's theatre, (ref. 69) and is perhaps
a working design by Beazley, although it differs in
some respects from newspaper descriptions (Plate
30b).
At the first performance on 25 May three pieces
were presented, a 'new trifle', Summer and Winter,
by Morris Barnett, a melodrama, The Sergeant's
Wife, and an 'old farce', The Midnight Hour. (ref. 70)
The opening was unsuccessful, and within a week
the theatre was closed. (ref. 71) The fiasco has been
attributed to a failure, verging on farce, of the
stage machinery. (ref. 72) This was certainly faulty and
exposed the scene-shifters to the audience's view. (ref. 73)
Miss Kelly later admitted to 'some difficulties in
the scenic department'. (ref. 74) The inventor, however,
subsequently published praise of his design by
Beazley and the scenic artist, Clarkson Stanfield,
and attributed the theatre's lack of success merely
to 'want of public patronage'. (ref. 75) A contributory
factor was probably the high admission charges of
five or seven shillings. (ref. 76)
Miss Kelly reopened her theatre, at reduced
prices, on 22 February 1841, for a short season of
her own monologues, (ref. 77) but in the following year
illness finally ended her active use of the theatre. (ref. 78)
By 1842 she had ceased to occupy No. 74 (ref. 7) and in
1847 mortgaged her lease of the two sites. (ref. 79)
By 1849 she was unable to pay the rent, and was
evicted in November. In a letter to The Times
she said she had spent £16,000 on building and
operating the theatre. (ref. 80) (fn. a)
Since 1842 the theatre had mostly been used
for occasional amateur productions. Among these
were performances of plays by Ben Jonson and
Beaumont and Fletcher in 1845–6 by a company,
the Amateurs, which included Charles Dickens,
to whom Miss Kelly confessed 'with tears in her
eyes … that any jokes at her additional expense
in print would drive her mad'. (ref. 82) In 1850 the
theatre was reopened as the (Royal) Soho Theatre,
after redecoration by W. W. Deane and S. J.
Nicholl, (ref. 83) and in the following year an entrance
portico was built, (ref. 84) probably that shown on Plate
30a. In 1852 a sub-lease was acquired by T. P.
Mowbray and J. H. Rogers, cabriolet proprietors
(who promptly mortgaged it to a clergyman). (ref. 85)
Mowbray took later leases in 1864 and 1875,
when he was designated theatrical manager. (ref. 86)
Productions were various and ephemeral, including English 'Grand Opera' in 1850. Performances were mostly by amateurs, hiring the theatre
at standard rates. (ref. 87) In 1853 Mowbray still
advertised 'Pupils prepared for the Stage'. (ref. 78)
At other times the theatre, as 'Theatre Français',
attracted patrons chiefly among the foreigners
in Soho. (ref. 88)
In 1861 the direction of the theatre was assumed
by Albina di Rhona, 'the young Servian artist',
a dancer and comic actress. She renamed it the
New Royalty Theatre, and had it altered and
redecorated by 'M. Bulot, of Paris, Decorator in
Ordinary to his Imperial Majesty, Louis
Napoleon', with 'cut-glass lustres, painted panels,
blue satin draperies and gold mouldings'. (ref. 89) The
theatre was reopened on 12 November. But
despite a varied opening programme, in which
Miss di Rhona danced, the leader of the Boston
Brass Band from America executed a bugle solo,
and a good performance was given by a fourteenyear-old actress named Ellen Terry, (ref. 90) the new
régime was not successful.
On 25 March 1875 the theatre, under the
direction of Selina Dolaro, enjoyed an historic
success, with the first Gilbert and Sullivan opera
to be staged by Richard D'Oyly Carte. The
favourable reception of Trial by Jury, however,
led D'Oyly Carte to create his own company and
theatre, and brought no continuing prosperity to
the New Royalty. (ref. 91)
In 1877 began the association of the theatre,
lasting some thirty years, with Kate Santley, (ref. 78)
who later seems to have acquired the head lease. (ref. 92)
Many of the productions were opera-bouffes
adapted from the French.
The exterior of the theatre in 1882, with its
unassuming pedimented entrance, is shown in a
watercolour (ref. 93) reproduced on Plate 30a. The
auditorium then held 645 persons. (ref. 94)
In that year the First Chief Officer of the
London Fire Brigade strongly recommended to
the Metropolitan Board of Works the immediate
closure of the theatre. (ref. 94) Miss Santley, however,
had it reconstructed to designs of the architect,
Thomas Verity, whose plans, providing improved
means of egress made possible by the acquisition
of a right of way through No. 74, were approved
in October 1882. (ref. 43) The builder and decorator
was E. W. Bradwell. (ref. 95) This reconstruction
raised the rateable value from £317 to £990. (ref. 7)
On 23 April 1883 the theatre was reopened.
The improvement of the 'stuffy little hole' was
praised by The Stage: 'The staircases have been
furnished with a happy combination of dark red
and gold paper. The interior of the house is
decorated with red velvet covered with plaques,
which present portraits of various dramatists and
composers, and a further decoration of imitation
pearl helps to give a richer effect to the general
tone. The stage has also been much enlarged.' (ref. 96)
Shortly afterwards a former tradition was revived when M. L. Mayer, on removal from the
Gaiety, staged twice-yearly seasons of plays in
French. The Coquelins and other luminaries of
the Comédie Française appeared here in the
1880's, when the Royalty was 'the recognized
home of the Parisian drama' (ref. 97) and M. Mayer 'by
considerably raising the prices, actually made the
little house hold four hundred pounds'. (ref. 98)
But the opening of Shaftesbury Avenue and of
new theatres in that neighbourhood was perhaps
inimical to a theatre in Dean Street and in the
1890's the Royalty was not prospering. Being
vacant, it was taken in 1891 by J. T. Grein for
performances by his Independent Theatre before
subscribers, and here on 13 March 1891 'an
orderly audience, including many ladies, …
listened attentively to the dramatic exposition of
a subject which is not usually discussed outside
the walls of an hospital'. (ref. 99) Other critics of the
first performance in England of Ghosts called for
the withdrawal of Miss Santley's licence. (ref. 100)
Early in December 1892 the curate of St.
Anne's was condoling with her on the theatre's
lack of success. 'There were rain and fog outside,
and prospects were not cheerful within. In spite
of her successive plucky efforts, business had been
bad for a long time in the pretty little house, and,
as we sat, in the yellow twilight, in the deserted
refreshment saloon, with its bare bar and tables,
Miss Santley seriously debated with me the
advisability of getting rid of the unlucky property
altogether. But the gas "T-light" was flaring on
the dreary stage below, we heard faint sounds
from afar, and ghostly figures flitted through the
gloom. A new play, a last desperate effort, was
being rehearsed. By and by there came into our
desolate saloon a tall spare gentleman, with a deep
and pleasant voice… . The sympathetic speaker
was Mr. Brandon Thomas, and, all unknowing,
he was standing on the threshold of a great
fortune, and the success of his life. For this play,
born of the doubt and the darkness, turned out to
be "Charley's Aunt"… .' (ref. 101) The first performance in London was on 21 December 1892,
but its success led to its transference in a month to
the Globe Theatre. (ref. 102) The 'ghostly figures'
glimpsed by the curate, though momentous in
theatrical history, may not, however, have been
rehearsing Charley's Aunt (which was not to be
staged for another fortnight) but the play to be
produced the following night, again by the
Independent Theatre. This was Widowers'
Houses, and the performance on 9 December
1892 was the first of any play by Bernard Shaw.
It did not foreshadow the success of Charley's Aunt
and 'the fall of the curtain was attended with some
disorder'. (ref. 103)
On November 1893 the Royalty housed another independent experiment, when William
Poel produced for the Shakespeare Reading Society
a performance of Measure for Measure under an
approximation to contemporary conditions and
within a reconstruction of the Fortune Theatre. (ref. 104)
Another first performance in England by the
Independent Theatre was of The Wild Duck, on
4 May 1894. (ref. 105)
In 1894–5 expensive alterations, partly designed to make the theatre safer, were carried out
by Walter Emden. (ref. 106) The managements continued to be short-lived. In 1895–6 the manager
was Arthur Bourchier. (ref. 107) On 26 November 1899
the first production of the Incorporated Stage
Society took place, with the first performance of
Bernard Shaw's You Never Can Tell. (ref. 108) In
1900–1 Mrs. Patrick Campbell hired the theatre,
at £90 per week, and staged an enterprising
succession of contemporary plays, (ref. 109) and in
1903–4 a company under Hans Andresen and
Max Behrend had a successful season of German
theatre, including Hauptmann's Hannele and a
Sudermann farce three weeks after its first
performance in Berlin. (ref. 110) Also in 1904, the
newly founded Irish National Theatre Society
gave plays by W. B. Yeats and an early performance of Synge's first play, The Shadow of the Glen,
and Philip Carr's Mermaid Society produced
Elizabethan and Jacobean plays. (ref. 111) In May William Poel produced Romeo and Juliet for the
Elizabethan Stage Society, with very youthful
players, Esmé Percy and Dorothy Minto, in the
name parts. (ref. 112)
Further alterations for security against fire had
been required by the London County Council
in 1903. (ref. 113) These were delayed until 1905 when
it became possible for Miss Santley to acquire all
of No. 74 and have an extensive reconstruction
carried out by Smee and Cobay, decorators. The
plans were approved in October 1905. The
roof of the stage was raised, new exits provided,
and seated accommodation slightly increased, to
696 persons. (ref. 114) It was evidently at this time that
the upper face of No. 74 was cemented and the
difference in window-levels of the two houses
camouflaged (Plate 102a). Inside, Smee and
Cobay employed a light-coloured 'Régence'
scheme (Plate 31), making the Royalty 'one of
the brightest and prettiest theatres in London'. (ref. 115)
The theatre reopened on 4 January 1906 with
Réjane in a performance of Pailleron's La
Souris. (ref. 115) This inaugurated a season of Théâtre
Français directed by Gaston Mayer, son of
the former director of French plays here, and
for a year or two the earlier tradition was
renewed. (fn. b)
In 1911 J. E. Vedrenne and Dennis Eadie
acquired the Royalty, (ref. 116) and in March 1912
staged Milestones, by Arnold Bennett and Edward Knoblauch (later Knoblock), which had over
six hundred performances. (ref. 117) A post-war success
was the concert-party entertainment, The CoOptimists, first staged in June 1921. (ref. 118) The year
1924 saw the replacement of benches in the pit
by tip-up seats, the production by Walter Wanger
of an American play, Polly Preferred, with a
'cinematographic interlude', (ref. 113) and the first
West End production of Noel Coward's The
Vortex. (ref. 119) The first performance in London of
Juno and the Paycock was given in November
1925. (ref. 120) Another first performance of an O'Casey
play was of Within the Gates, a production of the
New Everyman Theatre in February 1934, (ref. 78) but
the last big success was in 1932 with While
Parents Sleep. (ref. 121)
By 1936 the danger of fire from celluloidstores and other adjacent properties was thought
to override the consideration, strongly pressed on
the Lord Chamberlain by the licensee, that the
theatre had been on the site before the development of inflammatory trades nearby, and finally
it was decided not to renew the licence after
November 1938. (ref. 43) The last performance was
given at a matinée on 25 November 1938, by the
Southern Cross Players. (ref. 78)
Abortive plans for complete rebuilding had
already been made in 1928–9 by Robert Cromie.
Others, for conversion to a cinema, were now
prepared by Charles Brett. Proposals for rebuilding as a theatre were renewed in 1943 when Cecil
Masey submitted designs, and again after the
war: in 1954 a theatre seating one thousand
persons was planned by T., P. H. and E.
Braddock.
All these plans were basically similar, aiming
to provide the maximum accommodation in a
cinema-like auditorium with stalls and a single
deep circle. Cromie's scheme was for rebuilding
on the site of Nos. 73 and 74, but the designs by
Masey and Messrs. Braddock made use of No. 72
for side exit-passages and ancillary accommodation.
In 1954–9, however, the present block of
offices, Royalty House, was erected on the site of
Nos. 72, 73 and 74, to a design by Messrs.
Braddock (see below). (ref. 122)
Architectural Description of the Theatre
The graphic evidence relating to Miss Kelly's
theatre is limited to a lease plan of 1840 and the
unsigned, undated, and tentatively ascribed watercolour drawing in the London Museum to which
reference has already been made.
The lease plan (fig. 52) shows the ground storey
of the former Nos. 73 and 74 in some detail, but
of the theatre building nothing is indicated apart
from the outer walls, the proscenium, and the
stage apron, or band pit. (ref. 47) It had a frontage of
46 feet 4 inches to Richmond Mews, and a depth
of 62 feet 9 inches, extended by an ante-room 13
feet 9 inches deep at the back of No. 74, leaving a
small yard or light-well at the rear of each house.
The ante-room or foyer was approached by a
short flight of steps rising from the north-west
splay of the bay in the ground-floor back room
of No 73. The lease plan shows that the
auditorium was about 44 feet wide by 33 feet
deep, and the stage was 24 feet deep with a 24feet-wide proscenium opening.
The London Museum drawing (Plate 30b),
apparently a study for the decoration of a small
theatre internally constructed of wood, shows a
pit of eight straight steppings rising to a gallery at
the back which is returned on either side of the
pit, with two stepped rows of benches. (ref. 69) Below
the side gallery shown is a passage leading to the
front entrance of the pit and, presumably, to the
stage pass-door. The proscenium has splayed
reveals, each containing a door with a window
above. The ceiling, treated as a sky dome framed
by a balustrade, continues with pendentives that
meet the rectangle of the auditorium and frame
wide segmental arches opening to an upper gallery.
Assuming that the pit seating was spaced in rows
2 feet 6 inches back-to-back, the auditorium of
the drawing would exactly fit the space shown on
the lease plan.
As a design it has little in common with Beazley's Lyceum and St. James's Theatres, but
resembles more closely such simple box-like
playhouses as the mid-Georgian theatre at Richmond, Yorkshire. The decorations, however,
with rose-marbled columns, the walls panelled in
tones of green, and the rose-trellised panels on the
lower gallery front, suggest a date around 1840.
No evidence, beyond that already quoted or
referred to, has come to light giving precise
details of the structural and decorative changes
made in 1850, and in 1861, but the printed report
of the First Chief Officer of the London Fire
Brigade gives the following details of the theatre at
the time of his inspection in 1882. 'The front building was originally a private house and … is in
good repair. In the basement is the carpenters'
workshops and a dressing room; on the ground
floor are the entrances and exits; and on the floors
above are the manager's office, housekeeper's
rooms, and refreshment saloons. This building
communicates with the back building on each
floor. The back building, or theatre proper, is
65 feet long and 48 feet wide, and comprises the
auditorium, the stage, dressing rooms, property
stores, and gas fitters' and carpenters' workshops.
… No structural alterations have been made
as far as can be ascertained.' The report gives the
capacity of the theatre as follows: the gallery held
295 persons; the dress circle 123; the private boxes
27; the pit 88; and the stalls 112. (ref. 94)
Thomas Verity's reconstruction of the theatre
in 1883 gave the auditorium its final basic form.
Verity took down the original rear wall of the
auditorium, which he extended eastwards to the
back of the houses, leaving the yard behind No. 74.
On the line of the old wall, which was retained
in the basement where the dressing-rooms were
accommodated, he placed three cast-iron columns
to support the new, partly cantilevered dress
circle. This contained six stepped rows of seating,
and at each end of its serpentine front was a
double and a single box. An upper line of three
columns supported the gallery, horseshoe fronted
and containing six steppings, of which the front
two continued on each side up to the proscenium
wall. The reconstructed auditorium was designed
to hold 644 persons, with the gallery accommodating 200, the dress circle 128, the boxes 30, the pit
200, and the stalls 86. According to the specification, £200 was to be included for 'canvas plaster
in Box fronts, Circle fronts and main ceiling', and
£400 was provided for 'papering, decorating and
gilding'. Verity's section shows that the stage was
roofed at the same level as the auditorium, and as
the proscenium opening was very high it seems
probable that there were no facilities for flying the
scenery. Emden's plans of 1895 show only modifications to Verity's work (fig. 53), but considerable
changes were made by Smee and Cobay in 1905,
when the stage roof was raised and a grid installed,
the means of exit further improved, and the seating
was increased to 696, with standing room for
158 persons. (ref. 123)
Smee and Cobay's 'Regence' decorations, which
survived until the demolition of the theatre, are
recorded in a series of photographs now in the
Enthoven Collection in the Victoria and Albert
Museum (Plate 31). Above the splayed reveal
of the elliptically headed proscenium arch, richly
moulded with foliage ornament, was a swannecked pediment composed of C-scrolls, centring
on the royal arms and ending in volutes on
which were seated putti, playing musical instruments. Terminal figures divided the dress-circle
boxes, and the upper stage box was framed by an
arch, surmounted by a broken pediment also
decked with seated putti. Wide elliptical arches
spanned the sides and back of the auditorium well,
and the flat ceiling was decorated with a rich
frame enclosing a large circular panel, radially
divided by eight ribs of guilloche ornament
meeting in a central octagon, framing a ventilation grille.
Figure 53:
Royalty Theatre, plan in 1895. Redrawn from a plan by Walter Emden in the possession of the Greater London Council