Savoy Theatre

Address: The Strand, London, WC2

Tube: Charing Cross

Architect: C. J. Phipps

Rebuilt: 1929 Frank Tugwell

1990 William Whitfield

Opened: 1881

Capacity: 1,150

The theatre was built by Richard D'Oyly Carte (1844–1901) as a showcase for the works of Gilbert and Sullivan’s. It was known as the Savoy Operas. The Savoy Theatre is connected with Gilbert and Sulivan and D'Oyly Carte who originally worked together at the Royalty Theatre in Soho. D'Oyly Carte was the business manager of the Royalty Theatre and both Gilbert and Sulivan had produced a one-act cantata called 'Trial By Jury' there. The theatre was the first public building in the world to be lit entirely by electricity. Later, Richard D'Oyly Carte built the Savoy Hotel next to the theatre, and the Carte family ran the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company for over a century.

The House of Savoy was the ruling family of the Italian Savoy descended from Humbert I, Count of Sabaudia. Historically Piedmont joined with Sabaudia, and the name evolved into "Savoie". Count Piero of Savoy (d. 1268), was the maternal uncle of Eleanor of Provence, the queen of Henry III of England, and he accompanied her to London. King Henry made Peter Earl of Richmond and gave him the land between The Strand and the Thames where the Savoy Palace was built in 1263.

The Savoy Palace became the London residence of John of Gaunt, 2nd Duke of Lancaster, until it was destroyed by fire in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. In 1505, Henry VII built a hospital in the palace ruins, and part of the old palace was used for a military prison until the 18th century.

In 1864, a fire gutted the building, leaving only the stone walls as a shell, and it sat empty until work began on the theatre in 1880.

The theatre originally had its main entrance on the Embankment but in 1903, the Savoy Hotel was built the entrance to the theatre was moved to the hotel's courtyard off the Strand. Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera Patience, was the first production at the new theatre. At a performance shortly after the theatre opened, Carte stepped on stage and broke a glowing light bulb to demonstrate the safety of the new technology. Gaslights had also been installed as a backup, but they were rarely used.

In 1914, Basil Rathbone made his London stage debut here, appearing as Finch in The Sin of David. In 1920, he returned to the theatre playing the title-role in Peter Ibbetson. After serving in the navy in World War I, Rupert D'Oyly Carte decided to bring the company back to the Savoy in style and began to update the Gilbert and Sullivan productions with Charles Ricketts's new designs for The Mikado first seen at the Prince's Theatre in 1926.

Other works presented at the Savoy included the premiere of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit in 1941, with a record run of 1,997 consecutive performances, unbroken in London until the 1970s.

After Rupert D'Oyly Carte's death in 1948, his daughter, Bridget D'Oyly Carte, succeeded as director and later president of the Savoy Hotel group, which controlled the theatre. The opera company closed in 1982, and Dame Bridget died in 1985, ending the family line.

While the theatre was being renovated in February 1990, a fire gutted the building, but fortunately the stage and backstage areas were spared. This preserved the work of Tugwell's and Lonides's designs which were in place from the 1929 refit. The present theatre has a capacity of 1,158. During the renovation an extra storey was added above the theatre that included a health club for the hotel and a swimming pool above the stage. The reopened theatre was the venue for the World Chess Championship in 1993, when Garry Kasparov took the crown.

In 1993, Noel Coward's Relative Values, played at the theatre, having premiered there in 1951. Tom Stoppard's Travesties, with Anthony Sher was next, and in 1994 the musical She Loves Me played, with Ruthie Henshall and John Gordon Sinclair. and Coward's Hay Fever, with Geraldine McEwan. In 2000, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company produced H.M.S. Pinafore; Donald Sutherland starred in Enigmatic Variations, followed by a second D'Oyly Carte season, playing The Pirates of Penzance; and Antarctica by David Young played at the theatre.

In 2003, the D'Oyly Carte revived Pinafore, followed by Bea Arthur at The Savoy, John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, Peter Pan, and Pirates. These productions were followed by The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville performed by The Savoy Opera Company in 2004. The theatre was sold in 2007 to Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, who bought the Savoy Hotel in 2005.

Past productions at the Savoy Theatre:

Fiddler on the Roof (19 May 2007 - 26 April 2008) by Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick and Joe Stein, starring Henry Goodman, Alexandra Silber, Damien Humbley and Victor McGuire