 Panoramic view of the theatre from stage | |
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| Address | New Road Brighton England |
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| Owner | Ambassador Theatre Group |
| Designation | Grade II* listed |
| Type | Proscenium |
| Capacity | 952 (four levels) |
| Construction | |
| Opened | 1807 |
| Rebuilt | 1854 |
| Years active | 205 |
| Website | |
| Official Box Office | |
The Theatre Royal is a theatre in Brighton, East Sussex, England presenting a range of West End and touring musicals and plays, along with performances of opera and ballet.
In 1806, the Prince of Wales (later George IV) gave Royal Assent for the theatre to be built and it opened on 27 June 1807, with a performance of William Shakespeare's Hamlet . The theatre struggled until it was purchased in 1854 by actor Henry John Nye Chart, who engaged theatre architect Charles J. Phipps to begin a programme of expansion and redevelopment.
The theatre improved its reputation and finances, becoming a respected venue. When Henry John Nye Chart died in 1876 his wife, Ellen Elizabeth Nye Chart, took over and continued the success as one of the first female theatre managers. There is a statue to honour her in the Royal Circle bar.
The venue used to have a "gulp bar", a backstage bar where actors could get a drink, even mid-performance.
In 1920, the financial buoyancy of the Theatre enabled the directors to buy adjacent properties and make substantial improvements to the building. In 1923 the Theatre purchased the Colonnade Hotel, now the Colonnade bar and in 1927, the last major structural enlargement was made to the auditorium. [1] In 1928, Walter C. Hackett's Other Men's Wives premiered at the theatre before transferring to the West End. Later premieres included The Ninth Man (1931), Frieda (1946), Young Wives' Tale (1949), Escapade (1952) and Not in the Book (1958).
In the mid and later 20th Century the Royal's stature and national reputation continued to grow. Ibsen, Rattigan, Coward and Orton plays opened as a try out date before a London West End run. The Redgrave Family, Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Charlton Heston, Marlene Dietrich, Margot Fonteyn, Rex Harrison, Judi Dench and Paul Scofield all performed there. [2]
On 20 August 1971 it became a Grade II* listed building, listed as "The Theatre Royal and the Colonnade Public House (Number 10) and Attached Colonnade and Stage Entrance to the Theatre Royal". [3]
In 1984, London impresario David Land, bought the theatre and subsidised productions at the theatre out of his own pocket up to £400,000 a year. [4] Land and later his son, Brook, ran the theatre for a decade and a half revitalising the Royal with popular acts. [5]
In 1986, the theatre was featured in the Rainbow episode Visit to the Theatre when Geoffrey Hayes, Zippy and George went to see Peter Pan (1904).
In 1999, the Theatre Royal was bought by the Ambassador Theatre Group and a full-scale modernisation commenced.
In 2007, the theatre celebrated its 200th anniversary with a visit from the Queen. The venue offers backstage tours, where the public can go behind the scenes at this grade II listed building.
In recent years, catering to a wider demographic, the Theatre Royal Brighton has chosen to offer an alternative to a Christmas pantomime, which it historically performed, replacing such shows with hits such as Spamalot (2011), The Rocky Horror Show (2012), and Priscilla Queen of the Desert (2013). It also regularly hosts performances during the city's annual Brighton Festival.
The Royal Pavilion, and surrounding gardens, also known as the Brighton Pavilion, is a Grade I listed former royal residence located in Brighton, England. Beginning in 1787, it was built in three stages as a seaside retreat for George, Prince of Wales, who became the Prince Regent in 1811, and King George IV in 1820. It is built in the Indo-Saracenic style prevalent in India for most of the 19th century. The current appearance of the Pavilion, with its domes and minarets, is the work of architect John Nash, who extended the building starting in 1815. George IV's successors William IV and Victoria also used the Pavilion, but Queen Victoria decided that Osborne House should be the royal seaside retreat, and the Pavilion was sold to the city of Brighton in 1850.
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre (RST) is a Grade II* listed 1,040+ seat thrust stage theatre owned by the Royal Shakespeare Company dedicated to the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is located in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon – Shakespeare's birthplace – in the English Midlands, beside the River Avon. The building incorporates the smaller Swan Theatre. The Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres re-opened in November 2010 after undergoing a major renovation known as the Transformation Project.
The Duke of York's Picture House is an art house cinema in Brighton, England, which lays claim to being the oldest cinema in continuous use in Britain. According to cinema historian Allen Eyles, the cinema "deserves to be named Britain's oldest cinema".
The Brighton Palace Pier, commonly known as Brighton Pier or the Palace Pier, is a Grade II* listed pleasure pier in Brighton, England, located in the city centre opposite the Old Steine. Established in 1899, it was the third pier to be constructed in Brighton after the Royal Suspension Chain Pier and the West Pier, but is now the only one still in operation. It is managed and operated by the Eclectic Bar Group.
The Theatre Royal is the oldest theatre in Glasgow and the longest running in Scotland. Located at 282 Hope Street, its front door was originally round the corner in Cowcaddens Street. It currently accommodates 1,541 people and is owned by Scottish Opera. The theatre opened in 1867, adopting the name Theatre Royal two years later. It is also the birthplace of Howard & Wyndham Ltd, owners and managers of theatres in Scotland and England until the 1970s, created by its chairman Baillie Michael Simons in 1895. It was Simons who as a cultural entrepreneur of his day also promoted the building of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and Glasgow's International Exhibitions of 1888 and 1901.
Stanmer House is a Grade I listed mansion set in Stanmer Park west of the village of Falmer and north-east of the city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England.
The Golders Green Hippodrome was built in 1913 by Bertie Crewe as a 3,000-seat music hall, to serve North London and the new London Underground Northern line expansion into Golders Green in the London Borough of Barnet, London, England.
The Theatre Royal in Bath, England, was built in 1805. A Grade II* listed building, it has been described by the Theatres Trust as "One of the most important surviving examples of Georgian theatre architecture". It has a capacity for an audience of around 900.
The Winter Gardens is a large entertainment complex in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, which includes a theatre, ballroom and conference facilities. Opened in 1878, it is a Grade II* listed building, operated by Blackpool Entertainment Company Limited on behalf of Blackpool Council, which purchased the property from Leisure Parcs Ltd as part of a £40 million deal in 2010.
Wilton's Music Hall is a Grade II* listed building in Shadwell, built as a music hall and now run as a multi-arts performance space in Graces Alley, off Cable Street in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is one of very few surviving music halls of the East End of London and retains many original features.
The Brighton Dome Studio Theatre is a theatre in Brighton, England. It is part of the wider Brighton Dome complex of buildings. It was built in 1935, originally as a supper room, but later converted into a theatre. Its audience capacity is 232 seated or 350 standing.
The Tyne Theatre and Opera House is a theatre in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It is a Grade I listed building, rated "in the top 4% of listed buildings" by English Heritage and is afforded a three star rating by the Theatres Trust, "a very fine theatre of the highest theatrical and architectural quality". It opened in 1867 as the Tyne Theatre and Opera House, designed by the Newcastle upon Tyne architecture practice of William Parnell. The backstage area was damaged by fire in 1985, with subsequent rebuilding restoring the Victorian stage machinery.
The Sassoon Mausoleum is the former grave of Sir Albert Sassoon and other members of his family, including Sir Edward Sassoon, 2nd Baronet, of Kensington Gore. It stands at 83 St. George's Road in Brighton, England. The single-storey building, which is Grade II listed, has since served as a furniture depository and an air-raid shelter, and since being purchased by a brewery in 1949 has remained a pub or bar.
The Royal Albion Hotel is a 3-star hotel, on the corner of Old Steine and Kings Road in Brighton, England. Built on the site of a house belonging to Richard Russell, a local doctor whose advocacy of sea-bathing and seawater drinking helped to make Brighton fashionable in the 18th century, it has been extended several times, although it experienced a period of rundown and closure in the early 20th century. A fire in 1998 caused serious damage, and the hotel was restored. However, another fire in 2023 seriously damaged the building to the extent that demolition of the western part of the building began on 19 July 2023.
Steine House is the former residence of Maria Fitzherbert, first wife of the Prince Regent, in the centre of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. The building is now owned and used by Brighton YMCA, the largest supported housing provider in Brighton and Hove. Brighton YMCA houses and resettles 311 homeless people of all ages, providing the best opportunities to empower clients to reach their full potential and achieve their aspirations.
Brighton and Hove, a city on the English Channel coast in southeast England, has a large and diverse stock of buildings "unrivalled architecturally" among the country's seaside resorts. The urban area, designated a city in 2000, is made up of the formerly separate towns of Brighton and Hove, nearby villages such as Portslade, Patcham and Rottingdean, and 20th-century estates such as Moulsecoomb and Mile Oak. The conurbation was first united in 1997 as a unitary authority and has a population of about 253,000. About half of the 20,430-acre (8,270 ha) geographical area is classed as built up.
Brighton Hippodrome is an entertainment venue in Brighton, England. It was built in 1897 and closed in 2007.
Clayton & Black were a firm of architects and surveyors from Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. In a career spanning the Victorian, Edwardian and interwar eras, they were responsible for designing and constructing an eclectic range of buildings in the growing town of Brighton and its neighbour Hove. Their work encompassed new residential, commercial, industrial and civic buildings, shopping arcades, churches, schools, cinemas and pubs, and alterations to hotels and other buildings. Later reconstituted as Clayton, Black & Daviel, the company designed some churches in the postwar period.
The Old Steine Gardens in Brighton, Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England, adjacent to the Old Steine thoroughfare, are the site of several monuments of national historic significance.
The Marlborough Pub and Theatre is a historic venue, situated at 4 Princes Street, Brighton. It has been associated, since the 1970s, with the LGBT community. The Marlborough's small theatre presents drama, cabaret and music throughout the year, including during the Brighton Fringe Festival, LGBT History Month and Brighton Pride Arts Festival. The pub reopened in 2021 as 'The Actors'.
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