Victoria Palace Theatre

Address: Victoria Street, London, SW1E 5EA

Tube: Victoria

Architect: Frank Matcham

Opened: 1911

Capacity: 1,550

There has been a theatre on this site since 1832, originally it was known as Moy’s Music Hall, and is the oldest licensed music hall in London. In 1863 it became The Royal Standard Music Hall. In 1886, when Victoria Street and Victoria Station were built, the theatre was demolished and the rebuilt Royal Standard Music Hall became:-

"the most comfortable Hall of entertainment in London... no expense has been spared."

In 1910 just prior to the First World War it was demolished to add electricity and renovate the stage, again no expense was spared and Frank Matcham's Victoria Palace cost the then astronomical sum of £12,000 to build. The new theatre did include new technological advances but much of the architecture of the old structure was maintained.

The auditorium is fully air-conditioned but features a magnificent sliding roof, a simple precursor of modern air conditioning. It would have minimised the levels of cigarette smoke, during an age when people smoked in the theatre. Originally, the Stalls, Dress Circle and Grand Circle each had their own entrance and their own box office selling pre-printed tickets from a paper plan.

From 1911, the Victoria Palace had a gilded statue of prima ballerina Anna Pavlova poised above it. The owner of the theatre Alfred had spectacularly introduced the dancer to the London stage. The superstitious ballerina hated it and as she passed the theatre, blinds in her car were always drawn. For safety reasons the original statue was removed in 1939 and has completely disappeared without a trace, it may have just fell into disuse or it may have been converted to bullets for the war effort. In 2006, a replica of the original statue was replaced above the cupola of the Victoria Palace and her gold-leafed figure once again looks down.

In 1934, the theatre presented Young England, a patriotic play written by the Rev. Walter Reynolds, then aged 83; received such amusing but disastrous reviews that it became a major cult hit and played to full houses for 278 performances before transferring to two other West End theatres.

In 1939, songs from Me and My Girl formed the first live broadcast of a performance by the BBC, listeners heard The Lambeth Walk. From 1947 through 1962, Jack Hylton produced The Crazy Gang series of variety shows, with performers including Flanagan and Allen, Nervo and Knox, and Naughton and Gold.

The long-running Black and White Minstrel Show played throughout the 1960s up to 1972. In 1982, a production of The Little Foxes saw Elizabeth Taylor making her London stage debut. Another unusually long-running show at the theatre was Buddy as in The Buddy Holly Story, that played for 13 years in London, beginning in 1989 and transferring to the Strand Theatre in 1995.

Past Productions at the Victoria Palace:

1930: The Chelsea Follies
1934: Young England
1937: Me and My Girl
1962: The Black and White Minstrel Show
1974: Carry On London
1978: Annie
1982: Windy City
1982: The Little Foxes
1986: Charlie Girl
1987: High Society
1989: Buddy - The Buddy Holly Story
Jolson played between 26 October 1995 - 22 March 1997 by Rob Bettinson and Francis Essex
Always 10 June 1997 - 26 June 2007 by William May and Jason Sprague
Fame The Musical 11 November 1997 - 17 January 1998)
Girls' Night Out 2 March 1998 - 2 May 1998 by Dave Simpson
Sweet Charity 19 May 1998 - 15 August 1998 by Cy Coleman, Bob Fosse and Neil Simon, starring Bonnie Langford
Annie 30 September 1998 - 28 February 1999 by Charles Strouse, Martin Charnin and Thomas Meehan, starring Lily Savage
The Colour of Justice: The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry 3 March 1999 - 13 March 1999 by Richard Norton-Taylor
The New Rocky Horror Show 14 April 1999 - 5 June 1999 by Richard O'Brien
The Pajama Game 4 October 1999 - 19 December 1999 by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross
La Cava (8 June 2000 - 22 July 2000) by Laurence O'Keefe, John Clafin and Dana Broccoli
Fame - The Musical 3 October 2000 - 8 September 2001 by Jacques Levy and Steve Margoshes
Kiss Me, Kate 30 August 2001 - 24 August 2002 by Cole Porter
Grease 2 October 2002 - 6 September 2003 by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, starring Ben Richards and Lee Latchford-Evans
Tonight's the Night 7 November 2003 - 9 October 2004 by Ben Elton and Rod Stewart
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 17 December 2004 - 23 January 2005 by Tudor Davies, Paul Elliott and Carole Todd, starring Lily Savage
Billy Elliot the Musical 11 May 2005 - by Lee Hall, starring Tim Healy