The Early History of Londons Adelphi Theatre

The Adelphi Theatre is one of London’s famous theatres. The Adelphi Theatre London goes right back to 1806, this blog looks at the very early history of the Adelphi Theatre and who helped shape it into what it is today.

Until the middle of the 16th century the Strand was an unpaved Thames-side path, bordering on one side a wider, unembanked river and on the other the gardens of grand houses. By the early 17th century those buildings had been demolished, to be replaced by smaller houses and fashionable shops; and during the 1830s the Strand’s western end was remodelled by architect John Nash. But it was in the latter half of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th that the greatest transformation took place, as a comprehensive redevelopment programme removed many of the early buildings.

Changes on a colossal scale, including the building of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road, altered the face of the West End, in the process providing sharp-witted entrepreneurs with an opportunity to buy or lease vacant plots upon which to build theatres. The Adelphi was not part of this rush to secure money-making sites, as the theatre, in a variety of configurations, had been in place since 1806. It was founded by John Scott, who made his fortune with his invention of a washing blue, known as ‘Old True Blue’, which he sold along with magic lanterns in his shop in the Strand. It was Scott’s talented, stage-struck daughter, Jane Margaret, who encouraged her father to establish a ‘well-appointed house’ at the rear of his shop. Seats were not cheap: Scott asked 5 shillings for box seats and 3 shillings in the pit (though both prices were subsequently reduced by 1 shilling).

The theatre was such a great success that Scott enlarged the auditorium in 1813-14 by the purchase of adjacent plots of land, and built a columned portico on the Strand. In 1819 he sold the building to T. Willis Jones and the playwright J. T. G. Rodwell, and, renamed the Adelphi, it continued to prosper. The frontage was rebuilt in 1840 to the designs of Samuel Beazley, architect of the Royal Lyceum (1816; burnt down 1830) and the interior of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (1822). Over the ensuing years the building was remodelled. In 1834 No. 18 Maiden Lane (built around 1635) had been acquired to accommodate enlargement of the stage by the owners Frederick Yates and Daniel Terry; and additional boxes were added. In 1858 another rebuilding programme produced a three-tier auditorium with a capacity of 1,400. In 1878 restaurateurs Agostino and Stefano Gatti bought the theatre lease from Benjamin Webster and F. B. Chatterton, also acquiring in 1885 the adjacent properties Nos. 409 and 410 Strand – where architect Spencer Chadwick built the Adelphi Theatre Restaurant, which opened in 1887 – and in 1891 No. 20 Maiden Lane, dating from c.1635; a plaque on this house records the murder by a stagehand of the famous actor William Terris on 16 December 1897.

In 1900 the lease passed to George Edwards, manager of the Gaiety in the Strand, who with architect Ernest Runtz virtually rebuilt the theatre for the production of musical comedy, at the same time enlarging the access from the Strand. The most recent rebuilding took place in 1930, when the theatre was entirely reconstructed to designs by Ernest Schaufelberg, retaining of the former structure only the flank walls and houses at Nos. 18-20 Maiden Lane, which had been refaced in 1868. Schaufelberg’s moderne, now painted façade on the Strand is faced in gridded white faience tiles on a black base; the theatre’s name runs along the parapet in large capital letters, an addition of 1937. The Art Deco foyer is lined in black marble under a stepped angular ceiling. The straight-sided, angular auditorium, with two concrete-framed cantilevered balconies, is very much of its age, and of considerable importance.

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