Aldwych Theatre
Address:
Aldwych Theatre
Aldwych
London
WC2B 4DF
Directions
Take the Picadilly Line to Covent Garden, exit into the Covent Garden Piazza and theatre is approximately 5-10 minute walk.
Access
Infra Red
Wheelchair access
Disabled toilets
Air Conditioned
Map
Nearest Underground
Covent Garden (500 yds)
Train
Charing Cross (900 yds)
Bus Routes
1, 4, 11, 13, 15, 68, 98 (Bus Stop outside theatre)
Nearest NCP Car Park
NCP at Drury Lane/Parker Street. Parking meters outside theatre.
Since October 2006 The Aldwych has been the home of Dirty Dancing, quoted by The Observer as being “THE BIGGEST LIVE THEATRE SENSATION OF ALL TIME”
London’s old Theatreland which had grown up in the shadow of Drury Lane was almost wiped out in the reconstruction of the area between Wellington Street, Strand. and the beginning of Fleet Street. The whole maze of slums, stretching up towards Drury Lane on one side, and Lincoln’s Inn on the other, was demolished, and the new streets, Aldwych and Kingsway, constructed.
This vast operation began in the last years of the nineteenth century and was not finally completed until after the First World War. Four theatres were demolished during the early stages of the work. The Olympic Theatre in Wych Street and the Opera Comique in the Strand were closed in 1899, the Globe Theatre in Newcastle Street shut its doors in 1902. This was followed by the closure of the Gaiety Theatre in the Strand in June of the same year.
On the large oblong site in Aldwych, between Catherine Street and Drury Lane with Tavistock Street in the rear, were planned two theatres with identical facades and an hotel, the Waldorf, which was not built until after both the theatres were opened.
The Waldorf Theatre (now the Strand) on the corner of Catherine Street was opened in May 1905, and its companion. T
The Aldwych Theatre, on the Aldwych / Drury Lane corner opened in December 1905. It was built by Seymour Hicks in association with the American impresario Charles Frohman, and designed by W. G. R. Sprague (who was also responsible for the Waldorf Theatre). The opening production, in 1905, was Blue Bell – a new version of Seymour Hicks’ Bluebell in Fairyland. Over the next few years a number of other musical comedies were presented frequently featuring Hicks and his wife Ellaline Terriss.
The Aldwych, during the period from 1925 until 1933 housed a series of farces by Ben Travers which have gone down in history as ‘The Aldwych Farces’. They include such familiar titles as A Cuckoo In the Nest, Rookery Nook, Thark, Plunder and A Cup of Kindness.
In 1958 a threat to the building by a redevelopment scheme was revealed, and the L.C.C. rejected plans in October and again in July 1959. After much speculation, it was finally announced in July 1960, that arrangements had been concluded for the Governors of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre. Stratford-upon-Avon to take over the Aldwych Theatre as their London Headquarters for the next three years. When they took possession in November, drastic alterations were commenced. An apron stage with a new proscenium and lighting was constructed, similar to that at Stratford, at a cost of £75,000. The then “owners” also redecorated during 1963 – new Circle Boxes were made and the old ones converted to stage use. In fact, the RSC continued to have it’s London headquarters based at the Aldwych until 1981 when it moved to the barbican.
The claim to having been home to both farce and the RSC is surely unique in the theatre world, since farce and the Royal Shakespeare Company are two very distinct and diverse areas of theatre!
Now the theatre’s history has turned full circle. As when it originally opened in the early part of the last century it is now again owned by an American – James Nederlander – and operated on his behalf by Michael Codron Plays Ltd.
Since the RSC moved, the theatre has hosted a number of successes: The Nerd starring Rowan Atkinson, a revival of Tom Stoppard’s Jumpers starring Paul Eddington and Felicity Kendal, the National Theatre productions of Brighton Beach Memoirs and A View fron the Bridge, Tom Stoppard’s play Hapgood with Felicity Kendal, Nigel Hawthorne and Roger Rees, and an adaption of some of Chekhov’s plays and short stories by Michael Frayn entitled The Sneeze, which starred Rowan Atkinson.
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