Haymarket Theatre Royal

Address: Haymarket , London, SW1

Tube: Piccadilly Circus

Architect: John Nash

Opened: 1821

Capacity: 905

The Theatre Royal Haymarket was historically known as the Haymarket Theatre or the Little Theatre. It dates back to 1720, making it the second oldest London theatre still in use. Samuel Foote acquired the lease in 1747, and in 1766, he gained a royal patent to play legitimate drama or spoken drama. The original Haymarket theatre building was a in the same street, but it has been at its current location since 1821, when it was redesigned by John Nash.

In 1873, the Haymarket was the venue for the first scheduled matinée performance, establishing a custom that would become normal. In 1879 its auditorium was reconstructed, and the stage was enclosed in the first use of the picture frame proscenium, which was normal in Spain. Prior to this most London theatres had an open stage on three sides which became the established custom during the Elizabethan period when most of the theatre were established in inns.

Its managers have included Squire Bancroft, John Baldwin Buckstone, Cyril Maude, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, and John Sleeper Clarke, the brother-in-law of John Wilkes Booth, the man who assassinated the American president Abraham Lincoln.

The First Haymarket was the Little Theatre built in 1720 by John Potter, at a cost of £1000 to build its structure and £500 for the decorations, scenery and costumes. It opened on December 29, 1720, with a French play La Fille a la Morte, ou le Badeaut de Paris performed by a company known as 'The French Comedians of His Grace the Duke of Montague'. It was known as a French theatre run by a French company.

The theatre's first major success was a 1729 production of a play by Samuel Johnson of Cheshire, Hurlothrumbo, or The Supernatural, which ran for 30 nights. The contemporary record for a long run was John Gay's The Beggar's Opera which ran for 62 performances. In 1730, it was taken over by an English company, and its name became the 'Little Theatre in the Haymarket'.

Among the actors who appeared there before 1737 when the theatre was closed under the Licensing Act 1737 were Aaron Hill, Theophilus Cibber, and Henry Fielding. In the eight to ten years prior to the Act being passed, the Haymarket was an alternative to John Rich's Theatre Royal, Covent Garden and the opera dominated Drury Lane Theatre. The actions of the playwright had precipitated the instigation of the Act; he produced a play called The Historical Register that parodied the Prime Minister Robert Walpole. Henry Fielding staged his plays at the Haymarket, and so did Henry Carey.

Hurlothrumbo was just one of a series of anti Walpole satires, followed by Tom Thumb, in 1734, the mock-opera, The Dragon of Wantley, with music by John Frederick Lampe. Although it was an opera it lampooned the taxation policies of Walpole. The piece was a huge success, with a record-setting run of 69 performances in its first season.

Additionally, exiles from Drury Lane's and Covent Garden's internal squabbles would show up at the Haymarket, and thus Charlotte Charke would act there in a parody of her father, Colley Cibber, one of the owners and managers of Drury Lane. The Theatrical Licensing Act, however, put an end to the anti Walpole satires, and that single act nearly sent the theatre into bankruptcy.

From 1741 to 1747, Charles Macklin, Cibber, Samuel Foote, and others sometimes produced plays there either by obtaining a temporary licence or by subterfuge. They produced a musical concert for which they charged for and then showed a Shakespearian play, claiming it to be a rehearsal and therefore free. It was the only way they could show legitimate spoken drama.

In 1758 Theophilus Cibber obtained a general licence under which Foote tried to establish the Haymarket as a legitimate theatre. With the aid of the Duke of York, he procured a royal licence to exhibit plays from May to September, for the period of the Duke’s lifetime. He also enlarged and improved the building, which he opened on May 14, 1767, as the Theatre Royal, the third patent theatre in London. Although Foote produced numerous successful plays at the theatre, he did not stop the custom of caricaturing well known persons on the stage and this, with increasing ill-health, resulted in his selling the theatre and patent.

During the 1793-94 seasons when the Drury Lane Theatre was being rebuilt, the Haymarket opened under the Drury Lane Patent. The season was eventful; the death toll was twenty people with a great deal more injured, when they were crushed queuing to watch the entrance of the King.

The Haymarket area from the theatre southward was rebuilt around 1820 when the architect John Nash's renovated the area. He persuaded the proprietors of the theatre to rebuild on a site down the south of the street so that the new portico would close the entrance from Charles Street. The main front feature of Nash’s elevation in the Haymarket is a portico of six Corinthian columns, which extends to the edge of the pavement and spans the whole frontage.

The theatre opened on 4 July 1821, with Sheridan’s The Rivals and it began a commercially successful era of comedy. W. S. Gilbert premiered seven of his plays at the Haymarket starting with Robinson Crusoe or, The Injun Bride and the Injured Wife in 1867. Gilbert's most famous play independent work without Sullivan was “engaged” and it premièred at the Haymarket in 1877. In 1873, matinées were staged starting at 2pm.

In 1879 the theatre was taken over by the Bancrofts, who reconstructed the auditorium so that the stage was enclosed in a complete picture frame proscenium arch. The pit was abolished when the stalls were built and the patrons, who clearly did not approve, staged a riot.

Herbert Beerbohm Tree took over upon the retirement of the Bancrofts and installed electric light in the theatre. Under Tree’s management, Oscar Wilde premiered his first comedy A Woman of No Importance and later An Ideal Husband premiered here. Tree’s next notable hit was George du Maurier’s Trilby, later in 1895. This ran for over 260 performances and Tree amassed a small fortune allowing him to raise enough money to build Her Majesty's Theatre and establish a drama company the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA). In 1897 The Little Minister by J. M. Barrie ran for 320 performances and in 1920 J. M. Barrie's Mary Rose had a run of 399 performances.

In 1939 the stalls bar was excavated but was not completed until 1941 because of the Second World War. The London premiere of Noel Coward’s Design for Living, followed.

Past performances at the Haymarket Theatre:

1948: Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie directed by Gielgud, starring Helen Hayes.
1949: The Heiress, an adaptation of Henry James’s Washington Square, directed by Gielgud and starring Ralph Richardson and Peggy Ashcroft, succeeded by Wendy Hiller in 1950.
1953: The Apple Cart (George Bernard Shaw), starring Noel Coward and Margaret Leighton
1957: Flowering Cherry by Robert Bolt starring Ralph Richardson and Celia Johnson, succeeded by Wendy Hiller, in 1958.
1960: Ross by Terence Rattigan.
1962: John Gielgud directed School for Scandal with Ralph Richardson and Margaret Rutherford, and The Tulip Bee by N. C. Hunter starring Celia Johnson and John Clements.
1963: Thornton Wilder’s Ides of March directed by Gielgud.
1971: Enid Bagnold's The Chalk Garden revival with Gladys Cooper.
1971 the First production of A Voyage Round My Father by John Mortimer starring Alec Guinness, and later succeeded by Michael Redgrave.
1972 Crown Matrimonial by Royce Ryton starring Wendy Hiller.
1974: Edith Evans and Friends
1975: On Approval (Frederick Lonsdale) with Geraldine McEwan and Edward Woodward
1976 The Circle with Googie Withers and John McCallum
1977 Rosmersholm by Ibsen)with Claire Bloom & Daniel Massey
1978The Millionairess by george Bernard Shaw with Penelope Keith. Waters of the Moon (N. C. Hunter) starring Wendy Hiller and Ingrid Bergman in her last stage engagement.
1980:Make and Break by Michael Frayn with Leonard Rossiter.
1981 Overheard by and starring Peter Ustinov and Virginia with Maggie Smith.
1982 Repertory season of Hobson's Choice starring Penelope Keith; A Coat of Varnish (Ronald Millar); Captain Brassbound's Conversion (Shaw); Uncle Vanya (Chekhov); Rules of the Game (Luigi Pirandello) and Man and Superman (Shaw) starring Peter O'Toole.
1983 School for Scandal starring Donald Sinden; Heartbreak House (Shaw) starring Rex Harrison; Ben Kingsley in his one-man show about Edmund Kean; A Patriot for Me (John Osborne); The Cherry Orchard (Chekhov) and The Sleeping Prince (Terence Rattigan).
1984 The Aspern Papers by Henry James adapted by Michael Redgrave, starring Christopher Reeve, Vanessa Redgrave and Wendy Hiller; Aren't We All (Frederick Lonsdale) and The Way of the World (Congreve).
1985 Sweet Bird of Youth (Tennessee Williams) starring Lauren Bacall; Old Times (Harold Pinter).
1986 Anthony and Cleopatra starring Vanessa Redgrave; Breaking the Code (Hugh Whitmore) starring Derek Jacobi; Long Day's Journey Into Night starring Jack Lemmon and The Apple Cart starring Peter O’Toole.
1987: Mad Bad and Dangerous To Know (Jane McCulloch) and Melon (Simon Gray).
1988 Orpheus Descending (Tennessee Williams) starring Vanessa Redgrave; You Never Can Tell (Shaw); The Deep Blue Sea (Rattigan) and The Admirable Crichton (J. M. Barrie).
1989 The Royal Baccarat Scandal (Royce Ryton); Veterans' Day (Donald Freed) and A Life In The Theatre (David Mamet).
1990 London Assurance (Dion Boucicault); An Evening with Peter Ustinov and Gasping (Ben Elton).
1991 Silly Cow (Ben Elton); John Sessions' Travelling Tales; Jean Anouilh's Becket starring Derek Jacobi and Robert Lindsay. 1992: Cyrano de Bergerac, title role played by Robert Lindsay; Heartbreak House and A Woman of No Importance.
1994 An Evening with Peter Ustinov, followed by Arcadia (Tom Stoppard).
1995 Burning Blue a new play by the first time playwright David Greer; Ibsen's The Master Builder directed by Peter Hall, starring Alan Bates.
1996 An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde returned a Century after its premiere at the Haymarket.
Directed by Peter Hall, with Martin Shaw as Lord Goring; Neil Simon's The Odd Couple starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman.
1997 A Streetcar Named Desire (Tennessee Williams) directed by Peter Hall, starring Jessica Lange; Lady Windermere's Fan; An Ideal Husband (returning after touring).
1997/98 A Delicate Balance (Edward Albee), starring Maggie Smith, John Standing, Annette Crosbie and Eileen Atkins.
1998 Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love starring John Wood, transferring from the National Theatre.
1999 Fascinating Aida’s comic revue, followed by a run of Neil Simon's The Prisoner of Second Avenue with Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason, and Love Letters by A. R. Gurney with Charlton Heston. A transfer of the Chichester Festival’s The Importance of Being Earnest starring Patricia Routledge.
2000 Collected Stories (Donald Marguiles) starring Helen Mirren; August Strindberg's Miss Julie.
200: The Blue Room by David Hare. Japes by Simon Gray, directed by Peter Hall.
2002 The Royal Family (Edna Ferber) starring Judi Dench; Lady Windermere's Fan, directed by Peter Hall starring Vanessa Redgrave and Joely Richardson; Rose Rage, an adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry VI plays, directed by Edward Hall.
2003 Judi Dench and Maggie Smith appeared for the first time together on stage in The Breath of Life by David Hare
Brand (Ibsen) directed by Adrian Noble, starring Ralph Fiennes
A Woman of No Importance with Rupert Graves, Samantha Bond and Prunella Scales also directed by Noble.
2004 A stage production of the film, When Harry Met Sally, starring Luke Perry and Alyson Hannigan (during which the house closed for two nights after bits of the ceiling fell down during a performance injuring about 13 people)
Singular Sensations – a season of performances by Barbara Cook, Michael Feinstein, Michael Ball and Joshua Rifkin.
Becket by Jean Anouilh.
2005 Victoria Wood's Acorn Antiques The Musical, starring Julie Walters, directed by Trevor Nunn; A Few Good Men starring Rob Lowe.
2006 A Man For All Seasons starring Martin Shaw.
Hay Fever by Noel Coward, starring Judi Dench and Peter Bowles
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, starring Dave Willetts and Shona Lindsay
Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks, starring Claire Bloom and Billy Zane.
2007 Pinter's People a compilation of Harold Pinter sketches of the past 40 years
The Lady from Dubuque (Albee), starring Maggie Smith; David Suchet in The Last Confession; The Country Wife starring Toby Stephens, Patricia Hodge and David Haig.