Prince of Wales Theatre - History
The Prince of Wales Theatre is located on Coventry Street in London where its closest underground station can be found at Piccadilly Circus and its nearest railways station can be found over at Charing Cross.
Many of the theatres that make up the vast list of venues in the capital city were designed by a small group of people. W G Sprague designed 33 different buildings and another C J Phipps designed many more. It was the latter, Phipps who was given the job of designing a theatre for Edgar Bruce, who wanted to construct a theatre following the success of some of his own shows. It finally opened in January 1884 with a performance of The Palace Of Truth, a fairy comedy penned by W S Gilbert.
When punters arrived to the performance they will have been met with a theatre design that was unlike any other, in that the flowery style chosen to match the nearby Thistle Hotel made it stand out amongst London’s other theatres of the time.
Following The Palace of Truth, the theatre became the venue that housed the likes of Pelleas and Melisande (1898), Don Juan's Last Wager (1900), The Only Way (1899), English Nell (1900), A Message from Mars (1901), and Becky Sharp (1901). During this time the well known performers to grace its stage included Martin Harvey, Lillie Langtry, Mrs Patrick Campbell, N. da Silva, Charles Hawtrey and Marie Tempest. During this time the theatre also became well known as the venue that revolutionised the way people viewed mime. Plays appeared like L’Enfant Prodigue (1891) and A Pierrot’s Life (1897) which before the arrival of the Prince of Wales Theatre would normally have been confined to circus tents.
So the theatre had cemented itself as a serious London theatre attracting great crowds, but the most common feature you would find her would have been musicals and comic operas which arrived at the theatre in the forms of Miss Hook of Holland (1907), The Balkan Princess (1910), Broadway Jones (1914) and Carminetta (1917). After this many successful sketches appeared under the pen of none other than Noel Coward and Ivor Novello (who would both go on to have theatres named after them in the capital) and as a result many stars graced the stage including Beatrice Lillie and Gertrude Lawrence.
The theatre at this time differs from the one we know now, mainly due to its demolition in the 1930s. The new theatre emerged in 1937 with various shows including Le Folies de Paris et Londres and the film Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator.
Fast forward to the 1960s and one would have seen productions such as Sweet Charity (1967) and Promises, Promises (1969) as well as Funny Girl (1966) which starred Barbra Streisand. Then in the 1970s and 1980s you could have enjoyed productions of The Plumber’s Progress (1976), Underneath the Arches (1982), Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Aspects of Love (1989).
The 2000s have brought with them the likes of Mamma Mia! following an extensive refurbishment that took place from 2003. As a result, the Prince of Wales himself has attended a production at the theatre to mark its reopening.
