Duchess Theatre - History
In the world of West End Theatre in London, it’s easy to forget amongst the grandeur and bright lights that some of the theatres are actually smaller than you might think. Enter The Duchess Theatre, with 479 seats on two levels, it is the smallest of the ‘proscenium arched’ West End theatres. It was designed by Ewen Barr and then constructed by F G Minter Ltd for Arthur Gibbons with the result being a theatre with the stalls below street level to get around the scale of the area. It opened on the 25th November 1929 with the play Tunnel Trench, which featured amongst its cast Emlyn Williams.
There are many notable productions that have been held at the theatre and in 1942 it hosted Noel Coward’s Blythe Spirit. It started at the Piccadilly Theatre and moved to St James Theatre before it found its home at the Duchess where it broke records with a run of 1,997 performances. This is in stark contrast to 1930’s production of The Intimate Revue which actually sported the shortest run in West End history as it closed without ever completing its first performance.
The thirties themselves contained a plethora of productions after this, starting with The Rose Without A Thorn in 1932, starring Frank Vosper, J B Priestley’s Laburnum Grove in 1933 (Priestley joined the management the following year), Eden End in 1934, followed for the rest of the decade with Cornelius (1935), T S Eliot’s Murder In The Cathedral (1936), Time And The Conways (1937), The Corn Is Green (1938) and The Playboy Of The Western World (1939).
After surviving the war, the Duchess was able to put on shows of The Linden Tree (1947), The Foolish Gentlewoman (1949), The Holly And The Ivy (1950) and Happy Family with Thora Hird and Dandy Nichols (1951). The next significant production came in the 1960s when Alfie appeared there by Bill Naughton in 1962. Lewis Gilbert saw the play at the Duchess and subsequently contacted the writer so that they could produce the movie version. After this the 1970s brought Tom Eyen’s The Dirtiest Show In Town, which had around 800 performances.
In 1974, Oh Calcutta transferred from the Royalty Theatre and remained at the Duchess until 1980, meaning it stayed at the theatre for 6 years. After this, between 1987 and 1990, The Player’s Theatre Company brought Late Joys to the theatre and this was followed by Marc Camoletti’s Don’t Dress For Dinner ran from 1992 to 1997.
Today the theatre is still enjoying monumental success as a venue for popular productions. The most recent productions for these accolades go to Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story, about the tragic life of the famous musician and The Gruffalo, the children’s play based on the books by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. They will both finish in February 2009 and January 2009 respectively.
