Theatre Royal Haymarket

History of the theatre

Origins and early years

The first Hay Market theatre was built in 1720 by John Potter, carpenter, on the site of The King's Head Inn in the Haymarket and a shop in Suffolk Street kept by Isaac Bliburgh, a gunsmith, and known by the sign of the Cannon and Musket. It was the third public theatre opened in the West End. The theatre cost £1000 to build, with a further £500 expended on decorations, scenery and costumes. It opened on 29 December 1720, with a French play La Fille a la Morte, ou le Badeaut de Paris performed by a company later known as The French Comedians of His Grace the Duke of Montague. Potter's speculation was known as The New French Theatre. Its name was changed to Little Theatre in the Hay.

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 – not as long as John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (62 performances), but still a long run for the time. In 1730, the theatre was taken over by an English company. 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 before the act was passed, the Haymarket was an alternative to John Rich's Theatre Royal, Covent Garden and the opera-dominated Drury Lane Theatre. Fielding himself was responsible for the instigation of the act, having produced a play called The Historical Register that parodied prime minister Robert Walpole, as the caricature, Quidam.

In particular, it was an alternative to the pantomime and special-effects dominated stages, and it presented opposition (Tory party) satire. Henry Fielding staged his plays at the Haymarket, and so did Henry Carey. Hurlothrumbo was just one of his plays in that series of anti-Walpolean satires, followed by Tom Thumb. Another, in 1734, was his mock-opera, The Dragon of Wantley, with music by John Frederick Lampe. This work punctured the vacuous operatic conventions and pointed a satirical barb at Walpole and his taxation policies. The piece was a huge success, with a record-setting run of 69 performances in its first season. The work debuted at the Haymarket Theatre, where its coded attack on Walpole would have been clear, but its long run occurred after it moved to Covent Garden, which had a much greater capacity for staging. The burlesque itself is very brief on the page, as it relied extensively on absurd theatrics, dances, and other non-textual entertainments. The Musical Entertainer from 1739 contains engravings showing how the staging was performed.

London's third patent theatre

In 1754, John Potter, who had been rated (i.e. paid property tax) for the theatre since its opening, was succeeded by John Whitehead. In 1758 Theophilus Cibber obtained from William Howard, then the Lord Chamberlain, a general licence under which Foote tried to establish the Haymarket as a regular theatre. With the aid of the Duke of York he procured a royal licence to exhibit plays during four months in each year from May to September during his lifetime. He also bought the lease of the theatre from Potter's executors and, having added to the site by purchasing adjoining property, he enlarged and improved the building which he opened on 14 May 1767, as the Theatre Royal, the third patent theatre in London. Several successful seasons followed, with Foote producing numerous plays at the theatre, but Foote finally got himself into difficulties by his custom of caricaturing well-known persons on the stage and this, combined with increasing ill-health, resulted in his selling both the theatre and patent to George Colman Sr. on 16 January 1777.

During the season of 1793–94 when Drury Lane Theatre was being rebuilt, the Haymarket was opened under the Drury Lane Patent. The season was notable for a 'Dreadful Accident' which occurred on 3 February 1794, 'when Twenty Persons unfortunately lost their lives, and a great Number were dreadfully bruised owing to a great Crowd pressing to see his Majesty, who was that Evening present at the Performance.' Amongst the dead were John Charles Brooke, Somerset Herald and Benjamin Pingo York Herald. Colman died in 1794, and the theatre descended to his son. George Colman Jr., though successful both as playwright and manager, dissipated his gains by his extravagance. For a time he lived in a room at the back of the theatre and he was finally forced to sell shares in the latter to his brother-in-law, David Morris. Monetary difficulties increased and for a while Colman managed the theatre from the King's Bench Prison, where he was confined for debt.

All the buildings on the east of the Haymarket from the theatre southward were rebuilt circa 1820 in connection with John Nash's schemes for the improvement of the neighbourhood. Nash persuaded the proprietors of the theatre to rebuild on a site a little south of the old one so that the portico should close the vista from Charles Street. The main front feature of Nash's elevation in the Haymarket was (and is) a pedimented portico of six Corinthian columns which extends in depth to the edge of the pavement and includes the whole frontage. It is sometimes stated that Nash rebuilt the theatre entirely, but there is evidence that he incorporated a house in Little Suffolk Street with the theatre, removed two shops which were in front, in the Haymarket, built a portico, increased the number of avenues and added a second gallery to the existing auditorium.

The latter half of the 19th century

In 1862, the theatre was host to a 400-night run of Our American Cousin, with Edward Sothern as Lord Dundreary. The play's success brought the word "dreary" into common use. Robertson's David Garrick was a hit in 1864, also with Sothern in the title role. Sothern also starred in H. J. Byron's An English Gentleman at the theatre in 1871. W. S. Gilbert premiered seven of his plays at the Haymarket. The first was his early burlesque, Robinson Crusoe; or, The Injun Bride and the Injured Wife (1867, written with Byron, Tom Hood, H. S. Leigh and Arthur Sketchley). Gilbert followed this with a number of his blank verse "fairy comedies", the first of which was The Palace of Truth (1870), produced by Buckstone. These starred William Hunter Kendal and his wife Madge Robertson Kendal and also included Pygmalion and Galatea (1871), and The Wicked World (1873). Gilbert also produced here his dramas, Charity (1874), Dan'l Druce, Blacksmith (1876), and his most famous play outside of his Savoy operas, Engaged, an 1877 farce. Buckstone's ghost has reportedly often been seen at the theatre, particularly during comedies and "when he appreciates things" playing there. In 2009, The Daily Telegraph reported that the actor Patrick Stewart saw the ghost standing in the wings during a performance of Waiting for Godot at the Haymarket. In May 1875, Arthur Sullivan's The Zoo transferred to the Haymarket.

In 1879 the house was taken over by the Bancrofts, who re-opened the theatre with a revival of Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Money, followed by Victorien Sardou's Odette (for which they engaged Madame Helena Modjeska) and Fedora, and Arthur Wing Pinero's Lords and Commons, with other revivals of previous successes. The auditorium had been reconstructed, and the stage enclosed in a complete picture frame proscenium, the first in London. The abolition of the pit by the introduction of stalls seating divided by plain iron arms caused the opening night play, Money, on 31 January 1880, to be delayed for half an hour while the audience in the galleries expressed their anger. Mr. Bancroft, in the character of Sir Frederick Blount, vainly endeavoured to pacify them, until he bluntly asked whether the play should proceed and thus obtained silence. The Bancrofts gave up management of the theatre in 1885.

The next season opened in September 1885. Herbert Beerbohm Tree became manager of the theatre and, in 1887, transferred The Red Lamp there from the Comedy Theatre; by then he had installed electric light in the theatre. Under Tree's management, Oscar Wilde premiered his comedy A Woman of No Importance in April 1893. In January 1895 Wilde's An Ideal Husband was first performed at the theatre. Tree's next notable hit was George du Maurier's Trilby, later in 1895. This ran for over 260 performances and made such profits that Tree was able to build Her Majesty's Theatre and establish RADA.

The 20th century

The Haymarket's managers Frederick Harrison (who was sole lessee) and Cyril Maude remained through the first year of the 20th century. In 1904, the auditorium was redesigned in Louis XVI style by C. Stanley Peach. The following year, Maude acquired the Playhouse Theatre by Charing Cross Station, leaving Harrison in sole control. In 1909, Herbert Trench produced Maurice Maeterlinck's The Blue Bird. Productions from then to the end of World War I included Bunty Pulls the Strings (1911), a Scottish comedy by Graham Moffat, which ran for 617 performances with Jimmy Finlayson in the lead; Ibsen's Ghosts (1914); Elegant Edward, with Henry Daniell as P. C. Hodson (1915); The Widow's Might (1916), a comedy by Leonard Huskinson and Christopher Sandeman, with Henry Daniell. and General Post, a comedy by J. E. Harold Terry, which opened on 14 March 1917 and ran for 532 performances, again with Daniell.

In 1920, J. M. Barrie's Mary Rose had a run of 399 performances. Another long-running production was Yellow Sands, in which Ralph Richardson gave 610 performances in 1926–27. In 1926 Harrison died, and Horace Watson became the theatre's General Manager. His presentations included 632 performances of The First Mrs Fraser, by St. John Ervine, starring Marie Tempest in 1929. In 1939, under Watson's management, work began on excavating a stalls bar, but it was not completed until 1941 owing to the outbreak of World War II. Wartime presentations included the London premiere of Noël Coward's Design for Living (1939) and John Gielgud's 1944–1945 repertory season of The Circle (Somerset Maugham), Love for Love (Congreve), Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Duchess of Malfi.

In 1940, Gielgud directed The Beggar's Opera, with Michael Redgrave as Macheath. In 1943, two Coward plays, Present Laughter and This Happy Breed, alternated. They were followed in 1945 by Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan and in 1948 by Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie directed by Gielgud, starring Helen Hayes; and The Heiress, an adaptation of Henry James's Washington Square, directed by Gielgud and starring Ralph Richardson and Peggy Ashcroft, who were succeeded by Godfrey Tearle and Wendy Hiller (1949–50).

In 1951–52 Waters of the Moon by N. C. Hunter starred Sybil Thorndike, Edith Evans and Wendy Hiller. For the Coronation season in 1953, Coward gave a rare performance in a play not written by him, The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw, with Margaret Leighton as his co-star. To Coward, the Haymarket was "the most perfect theatre in the world". In 1956, Stuart Watson, who had taken over management of the theatre from his father Horace, died and was succeeded by his son Anthony, and then his daughter-in-law Sylva Stuart Watson, who took over in 1963. Productions under the new management included Flowering Cherry by Robert Bolt (1957) starring Ralph Richardson and Celia Johnson; Ross by Terence Rattigan (1960) starring Alec Guinness; and John Gielgud's production of The School for Scandal (1962), with Ralph Richardson and Margaret Rutherford. In the 1960s, notable presentations included The Tulip Bee by N. C. Hunter starring Celia Johnson and John Clements and Thornton Wilder's Ides of March directed by Gielgud (both 1963).

The 21st century

Productions at the Haymarket in this century have included The Royal Family by Edna Ferber, starring Judi Dench (2001), Lady Windermere's Fan, directed by Peter Hall, starring Vanessa Redgrave and Joely Richardson (2002), and Dench appeared on stage together with Maggie Smith for the first time in over 40 years in The Breath of Life by David Hare (2002). Productions in 2003 included Ibsen's Brand, directed by Adrian Noble, starring Ralph Fiennes and A Woman of No Importance, with Rupert Graves, Samantha Bond and Prunella Scales, also directed by Noble. In 2004, the theatre presented a stage adaptation 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 during a performance injuring fifteen people.

2005 productions included Victoria Wood's Acorn Antiques: The Musical, starring Julie Walters, Celia Imrie and Duncan Preston, directed by Trevor Nunn and A Few Good Men, starring Rob Lowe, Suranne Jones and Jack Ellis. 2006 featured three revivals: A Man for All Seasons, starring Martin Shaw; Coward's Hay Fever, with Judi Dench and Peter Bowles; and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, starring Dave Willetts and Shona Lindsay. The last production of that year was Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks, starring Claire Bloom and Billy Zane. The first production of 2007 was Pinter's People, a compilation of Harold Pinter sketches of the past 40 years; later productions of that year were The Lady from Dubuque (Albee), starring Maggie Smith; David Suchet in The Last Confession; and The Country Wife, starring Toby Stephens, Patricia Hodge and David Haig.

In 2008, productions were The Sea (Bond), starring David Haig, Eileen Atkins and Russell Tovey; Marguerite, a new musical starring Ruthie Henshall and Alexander Hanson; and Keith Allen in an adaptation of Treasure Island. The following year, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Simon Callow and Ronald Pickup starred in Waiting for Godot, followed by Breakfast at Tiffany's, starring Anna Friel, Joseph Cross, James Dreyfus and Suzanne Bertish. Godot and Tiffany's were featured, along with the staff and history of the Haymarket Theatre itself, in a 2009 eight-part Sky Arts documentary, Theatreland. In 2010 Waiting for Godot was repeated with McKellen, Roger Rees, Matthew Kelly and Pickup, followed by Sweet Charity. The next show was The Rivals starring Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles.

Trevor Nunn became Artistic Director 2011, producing a revival of Flare Path, as part of the playwright Terence Rattigan's centenary year celebrations, starring Sienna Miller, James Purefoy and Sheridan Smith; the Chichester Festival Theatre's revival of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard; Ralph Fiennes as Prospero in The Tempest; and, over the Christmas/New Year season, Robert Lindsay and Joanna Lumley in The Lion in Winter. For two years from March 2012, the Haymarket hosted One Man, Two Guvnors. The theatre was one of the 40 theatres featured in the 2012 DVD documentary series Great West End Theatres, presented by Donald Sinden.

Masterclass

In 1998 the theatre founded Masterclass, a charity that offers creative opportunities and performing experiences to young people pursuing careers in the performing arts. Its activities include, in addition to masterclasses, apprenticeships in directing and theatre design, workshop productions, and theatre career fairs. The masterclasses cover a range of disciplines, from acting and directing to writing, producing and design, and give young people the chance to learn directly from leading practitioners working in theatre, film and television. As of 2012, more than 60,000 young people between the ages of 17 and 30 had participated in the masterclasses.