Folly Theatre
Encyclopedia
The Folly Theatre was a London
theatre of the late 19th century, in William IV Street, near Charing Cross
, in the City of Westminster
. It was converted from the house of a religious order, and became a small theatre, with a capacity of 900 seated and standing. The theatre specialised in presenting music hall
, burlesque and opera bouffe
. The Beefsteak Club
had quarters above the theatre.
As a stock company, under the direction first of Alexander Henderson and Lydia Thompson
and then of John Lawrence Toole
, the theatre was significant for beginning the professional careers of many Victorian era
actors, writers and actor-managers. The theatre was demolished in 1895, possibly due to disturbance caused to the neighbouring Charing Cross Hospital
.
from 1848–56 and was used for lectures. Here, in 1850, John Henry Newman delivered his Lectures on Anglican Difficulties, after his conversion to Catholicism. On the departure of the religious order, which moved to the Brompton Oratory, the hall became Woodin's Polygraphic Hall in 1855, where William S. Woodin gave monologue entertainments.
In 1869, the building was converted to a small Music hall
and playhouse called the Royal Charing Cross Theatre and, in 1872 was renamed the Charing Cross Theatre and was advertised as the Theatre Royal, Charing Cross, in 1874-75. The theatre opened on 19 June 1869 with W. S. Gilbert
's burlesque of Norma
, called The Pretty Druidess
, on the bill, and in 1870 it held Gilbert and Frederic Clay
's The Gentleman in Black
. In 1872, it hosted J. S. Clarke's revival of Sheridan
's The Rivals
, featuring Mrs Stirling in the role that was to make her famous as Mrs Malaprop. The name Charing Cross Music Hall
was also adopted in the late 1880s by the brothers Carlo and Giovanni Gatti for their Gatti's-Under-the-Arches Music hall. This became the Hungerford Music Hall in 1883, later returning to the former name.
, the theatre was renamed The Folly Theatre in 1876, when it was bought by Alexander Henderson, and it became a burlesque house, with his wife, Lydia Thompson
, in the lead roles. The first piece was a successful burlesque of Blue Beard. In 1877, Up the River, or the Strict Kew-Tea, by H. B. Farnie and Robert Reece
played at the theatre as did a Farnie and Reece adaptation of Offenbach called The Creole.
In 1878, the theatre had a tremendous success with Violet Cameron in Robert Planquette
's Les cloches de Corneville
, adapted by Farnie and Reece, which (after transferring to the Globe Theatre
and returning to the Folly), held the record for long runs in musical theatre
for a decade. Florence St. John
got her start in the piece on tour and then in the theatre. Farnie and Reece's burlesque Stars and Garters then played. Reece's successful burlesque, Carmen; or Sold for a Song, and Sydney Grundy
's After Long Years both played at the theatre in 1879. T. W. Roberton's Dublin Bay played here in 1880. The theatre was described in Dickens Dictionary of London
(1879) as A little bandbox of a place, very prettily fitted up, and with a decided speciality for burlesque and opera bouffe.
On 7 November 1879, John Lawrence Toole
(1830-1906) took over the management, with a stock company. Presentations included farces, burlesques and travesties of popular plays, beginning with H. J. Byron
's A Fool and His Money. Toole's only son, Frank, died on 7 December 1879 following an earlier football injury from which he never fully recovered. Toole was both a noted comedian and a friend of Charles Dickens
. He spent much of the next few years touring, but also produced plays at the theatre, including Arthur Wing Pinero
's Hester's Mystery (1880) and Byron's Upper Crust and Auntie (1880), Dion Boucicault
's play, Dot, starring Toole, was produced here in 1881.
named after him. Noted actress Florence Farr
(1860-1917) began her professional career with an apprenticeship at Toole's theatre, débuting with a juvenile role in Byron's Uncle Dick's Darling, in 1882. In 1883, Stage Dora; or, Who Killed Cock Robin, a burlesque by F. C. Burnand of Sardou's Fédora, premiered at Toole's, starring Toole. Burnand's Paw Claudian (1884) was a burlesque of the 1883 costume (Byzantine) drama 'Claudian' by Henry Herman and W. G. Wills. Mr. Guffin’s Elopement and The Great Tay-Kin, two shows with words by Arthur Law
and music by George Grossmith
, starring Toole, played at the theatre in 1885. The last play by John Maddison Morton
to be produced in his lifetime, a three-act farcical comedy called Going It, played at Toole's in 1885 and kept the house in a continual roar of laughter. Pinero's Girls and Boys played here in 1885, as did Billee Taylor
in 1886 and The Butler, by Herman Charles Merivale
, starring Toole, also in 1886. Pepita, an operetta by Charles Lecocq, premiered at the theatre in 1888. The Don, by Merivale, also starred Toole in 1888.
The Bungalow, by Fred Horner, played at the theatre in 1890. Ibsen's Ghost, a one-act parody on Ghosts
, starring Irene Vanbrugh
and Toole, was J. M. Barrie
's first London play, running for just 27 performances at Toole's Theatre from 30 May 1891. In 1892, Toole directed the première of Barrie's first hit play, Walker, London, which ran for 497 performances.
Toole retired in 1893, due to increasing ill health, brought on by the deaths within a few years of his family. His last piece was Thoroughbred by Ralph Lumley, and upon his retirement Rutland Barrington
replaced him in the role. The theatre was taken over by Violet Melnotte, who had made her début at the Folly Theatre in October 1876 as Fezz in Bluebeard
with Lydia Thompson's Company. She had many interests and at the same time was building the Duke of York's Theatre
, with her husband Frank Wyatt
.
The lease expired in 1895 and plans were drawn up by C. J. Phipps to rebuild the theatre, but they were opposed, apparently because the noise at the theatre disturbed patients at the Charing Cross Hospital
. The theatre was demolished in 1896 and the site used to extend Charing Cross Hospital. The site is now a part of the Charing Cross Police Station.
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
theatre of the late 19th century, in William IV Street, near Charing Cross
Charing Cross
Charing Cross denotes the junction of Strand, Whitehall and Cockspur Street, just south of Trafalgar Square in central London, England. It is named after the now demolished Eleanor cross that stood there, in what was once the hamlet of Charing. The site of the cross is now occupied by an equestrian...
, in the City of Westminster
City of Westminster
The City of Westminster is a London borough occupying much of the central area of London, England, including most of the West End. It is located to the west of and adjoining the ancient City of London, directly to the east of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and its southern boundary...
. It was converted from the house of a religious order, and became a small theatre, with a capacity of 900 seated and standing. The theatre specialised in presenting music hall
Music hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
, burlesque and opera bouffe
Opéra bouffe
Opéra bouffe is a genre of late 19th-century French operetta, closely associated with Jacques Offenbach, who produced many of them at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens that gave its name to the form....
. The Beefsteak Club
Beefsteak Club
Beefsteak Club is the name, nickname and historically common misnomer applied by sources to several 18th and 19th century male dining clubs that celebrated the beefsteak as a symbol of patriotic and often Whig concepts of liberty and prosperity....
had quarters above the theatre.
As a stock company, under the direction first of Alexander Henderson and Lydia Thompson
Lydia Thompson
Lydia Thompson, born Eliza Hodges Thompson , was an English dancer, actress and theatrical producer....
and then of John Lawrence Toole
John Lawrence Toole
John Lawrence Toole was an English comic actor and theatrical producer. He was famous for his roles in farce and in serio-comic melodramas in a career that spanned more than four decades...
, the theatre was significant for beginning the professional careers of many Victorian era
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
actors, writers and actor-managers. The theatre was demolished in 1895, possibly due to disturbance caused to the neighbouring Charing Cross Hospital
Charing Cross Hospital
Charing Cross Hospital is a general, acute hospital located in London, United Kingdom and established in 1818. It is located several miles to the west of the city centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham....
.
Early years
The building opened as the Lowther Rooms in 1840. It was the residence of the Fathers of the London Oratory of St. Philip NeriOratory of Saint Philip Neri
The Oratory of Saint Philip Neri is a congregation of Catholic priests and lay-brothers who live together in a community bound together by no formal vows but only with the bond of charity. They are commonly referred to as Oratorians...
from 1848–56 and was used for lectures. Here, in 1850, John Henry Newman delivered his Lectures on Anglican Difficulties, after his conversion to Catholicism. On the departure of the religious order, which moved to the Brompton Oratory, the hall became Woodin's Polygraphic Hall in 1855, where William S. Woodin gave monologue entertainments.
In 1869, the building was converted to a small Music hall
Music hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
and playhouse called the Royal Charing Cross Theatre and, in 1872 was renamed the Charing Cross Theatre and was advertised as the Theatre Royal, Charing Cross, in 1874-75. The theatre opened on 19 June 1869 with W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
's burlesque of Norma
Norma (opera)
Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...
, called The Pretty Druidess
The Pretty Druidess
The Pretty Druidess; Or, The Mother, The Maid, and The Mistletoe Bough is an operatic burlesque by W. S. Gilbert. It was produced at the opening of the new Charing Cross Theatre on 19 June 1869 and ran until September of that year....
, on the bill, and in 1870 it held Gilbert and Frederic Clay
Frederic Clay
Frederic Emes Clay was an English composer known principally for his music written for the stage. Clay, a great friend of Arthur Sullivan's, wrote four comic operas with W. S...
's The Gentleman in Black
The Gentleman in Black
The Gentleman in Black is a two-act comic opera written in 1870 with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Frederic Clay. The "musical comedietta" opened at the Charing Cross Theatre on 26 May 1870...
. In 1872, it hosted J. S. Clarke's revival of Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Irish-born playwright and poet and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. For thirty-two years he was also a Whig Member of the British House of Commons for Stafford , Westminster and Ilchester...
's The Rivals
The Rivals
The Rivals, a play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, is a comedy of manners in five acts. It was first performed on 17 January 1775.- Production :...
, featuring Mrs Stirling in the role that was to make her famous as Mrs Malaprop. The name Charing Cross Music Hall
Charing Cross Music Hall
The Charing Cross Music Hall was a music hall established beneath the Arches of Charing Cross railway station in 1866 by brothers, Giovanni and Carlo Gatti to replace the former Hungerford Hall...
was also adopted in the late 1880s by the brothers Carlo and Giovanni Gatti for their Gatti's-Under-the-Arches Music hall. This became the Hungerford Music Hall in 1883, later returning to the former name.
Folly Theatre
After some rebuilding, by architect Thomas VerityThomas Verity
Thomas Verity was an English theatre architect during the theatre building boom of 1885–1915.Verity began his career articled in the architecture department of the War Office, assisting in the erection of the South Kensington Museum...
, the theatre was renamed The Folly Theatre in 1876, when it was bought by Alexander Henderson, and it became a burlesque house, with his wife, Lydia Thompson
Lydia Thompson
Lydia Thompson, born Eliza Hodges Thompson , was an English dancer, actress and theatrical producer....
, in the lead roles. The first piece was a successful burlesque of Blue Beard. In 1877, Up the River, or the Strict Kew-Tea, by H. B. Farnie and Robert Reece
Robert Reece
Robert Reece was a British comic playwright and librettist active in the Victorian era. He wrote many successful musical burlesques, comic operas, farces and adaptations from the French, including the English-language adaptation of the operetta Les cloches de Corneville, which became the...
played at the theatre as did a Farnie and Reece adaptation of Offenbach called The Creole.
In 1878, the theatre had a tremendous success with Violet Cameron in Robert Planquette
Robert Planquette
Jean Robert Planquette was a French composer of songs and operettas.Several of Planquette's operettas were extraordinarily successful in Britain, including Les cloches de Corneville , the length of whose initial London run broke all records for any piece of musical theatre up to that time, and Rip...
's Les cloches de Corneville
Les cloches de Corneville
Les cloches de Corneville is an operetta in three acts, composed by Robert Planquette to a French libretto by Louis Clairville and Charles Gabet based on a play by Gabet.In 1876, the director of the Théâtre des Folies-Dramatiques, Louis Cantin, hired Planquette to compose the operetta,...
, adapted by Farnie and Reece, which (after transferring to the Globe Theatre
Globe Theatre (Newcastle Street)
The Globe was a Victorian theatre built in 1868 and demolished in 1902. It was the third of five London theatres to bear the name. It was also known at various times as the Royal Globe Theatre or Globe Theatre Royal. Its repertoire consisted mainly of comedies and musical shows...
and returning to the Folly), held the record for long runs in musical theatre
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
for a decade. Florence St. John
Florence St. John
Florence St. John , was an English singer and actress of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras famous for her roles in operetta, musical burlesque, music hall, opera and, later, comic plays.-Life and career:...
got her start in the piece on tour and then in the theatre. Farnie and Reece's burlesque Stars and Garters then played. Reece's successful burlesque, Carmen; or Sold for a Song, and Sydney Grundy
Sydney Grundy
Sydney Grundy was an English dramatist. Most of his works were adaptations of European plays, and many became successful enough to tour throughout the English-speaking world...
's After Long Years both played at the theatre in 1879. T. W. Roberton's Dublin Bay played here in 1880. The theatre was described in Dickens Dictionary of London
Charles Dickens, Jr
Charles Dickens, Jr, born Charles Culliford Boz Dickens , was the first child of the novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine. A failed businessman, he became the editor of his father's magazine All the Year Round, and a successful writer of dictionaries...
(1879) as A little bandbox of a place, very prettily fitted up, and with a decided speciality for burlesque and opera bouffe.
John Lawrence Toole
John Lawrence Toole was an English comic actor and theatrical producer. He was famous for his roles in farce and in serio-comic melodramas in a career that spanned more than four decades...
(1830-1906) took over the management, with a stock company. Presentations included farces, burlesques and travesties of popular plays, beginning with H. J. Byron
Henry James Byron
Henry James Byron was a prolific English dramatist, as well as an editor, journalist, director, theatre manager, novelist and actor....
's A Fool and His Money. Toole's only son, Frank, died on 7 December 1879 following an earlier football injury from which he never fully recovered. Toole was both a noted comedian and a friend of Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
. He spent much of the next few years touring, but also produced plays at the theatre, including Arthur Wing Pinero
Arthur Wing Pinero
Sir Arthur Wing Pinero was an English actor and later an important dramatist and stage director.-Biography:...
's Hester's Mystery (1880) and Byron's Upper Crust and Auntie (1880), Dion Boucicault
Dion Boucicault
Dionysius Lardner Boursiquot , commonly known as Dion Boucicault, was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-managers then in the...
's play, Dot, starring Toole, was produced here in 1881.
Toole's Theatre
In 1882, after further rebuilding, Toole re-opened the theatre as Toole's Theatre, becoming the first actor to have a West End theatreWest End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
named after him. Noted actress Florence Farr
Florence Farr
Florence Beatrice Emery Farr was a British West End leading actress, composer and director. She was also a women's rights activist, journalist, educator, singer, novelist, leader of the occult order, The Golden Dawn and one time mistress of playwright George Bernard Shaw...
(1860-1917) began her professional career with an apprenticeship at Toole's theatre, débuting with a juvenile role in Byron's Uncle Dick's Darling, in 1882. In 1883, Stage Dora; or, Who Killed Cock Robin, a burlesque by F. C. Burnand of Sardou's Fédora, premiered at Toole's, starring Toole. Burnand's Paw Claudian (1884) was a burlesque of the 1883 costume (Byzantine) drama 'Claudian' by Henry Herman and W. G. Wills. Mr. Guffin’s Elopement and The Great Tay-Kin, two shows with words by Arthur Law
Arthur Law
William Arthur Law , better known as Arthur Law, was an English playwright, actor and scenic designer.-Life and career:...
and music by George Grossmith
George Grossmith
George Grossmith was an English comedian, writer, composer, actor, and singer. His performing career spanned more than four decades...
, starring Toole, played at the theatre in 1885. The last play by John Maddison Morton
John Maddison Morton
John Maddison Morton was an English playwright who specialized in one-act farces. His most famous farce was Box and Cox . He also wrote comic dramas, pantomimes and other theatrical pieces.-Biography:...
to be produced in his lifetime, a three-act farcical comedy called Going It, played at Toole's in 1885 and kept the house in a continual roar of laughter. Pinero's Girls and Boys played here in 1885, as did Billee Taylor
Billee Taylor
Billee Taylor, or The Reward of Virtue is "a nautical comedy opera" by Edward Solomon, with a libretto by Henry Pottinger Stephens.The piece was first produced at the Imperial Theatre in London on 30 October 1880, starring Arthur Williams as Sir Mincing Lane and Frederick Rivers as Billee. It...
in 1886 and The Butler, by Herman Charles Merivale
Herman Charles Merivale
Herman Charles Merivale MA was an English dramatist and poet, son of Herman Merivale. He also used the punning pseudonym Felix Dale....
, starring Toole, also in 1886. Pepita, an operetta by Charles Lecocq, premiered at the theatre in 1888. The Don, by Merivale, also starred Toole in 1888.
Ghosts (play)
Ghosts is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was written in 1881 and first staged in 1882.Like many of Ibsen's better-known plays, Ghosts is a scathing commentary on 19th century morality....
, starring Irene Vanbrugh
Irene Vanbrugh
Dame Irene Vanbrugh DBE , née Barnes, was an English actress. The daughter of a clergyman, Vanbrugh followed her elder sister Violet into the theatrical profession, and sustained a career for more than 50 years....
and Toole, was J. M. Barrie
J. M. Barrie
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright...
's first London play, running for just 27 performances at Toole's Theatre from 30 May 1891. In 1892, Toole directed the première of Barrie's first hit play, Walker, London, which ran for 497 performances.
Toole retired in 1893, due to increasing ill health, brought on by the deaths within a few years of his family. His last piece was Thoroughbred by Ralph Lumley, and upon his retirement Rutland Barrington
Rutland Barrington
Rutland Barrington was an English singer, actor, comedian, and Edwardian musical comedy star. Best remembered for originating the lyric baritone roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas from 1877 to 1896, his performing career spanned more than four decades...
replaced him in the role. The theatre was taken over by Violet Melnotte, who had made her début at the Folly Theatre in October 1876 as Fezz in Bluebeard
Bluebeard
"Bluebeard" is a French literary folktale written by Charles Perrault and is one of eight tales by the author first published by Barbin in Paris in January 1697 in Histoires ou Contes du temps passé. The tale tells the story of a violent nobleman in the habit of murdering his wives and the...
with Lydia Thompson's Company. She had many interests and at the same time was building the Duke of York's Theatre
Duke of York's Theatre
The Duke of York's Theatre is a West End Theatre in St Martin's Lane, in the City of Westminster. It was built for Frank Wyatt and his wife, Violet Melnotte, who retained ownership of the theatre, until her death in 1935. It opened on 10 September 1892 as the Trafalgar Square Theatre, with Wedding...
, with her husband Frank Wyatt
Frank Wyatt (singer)
Frank Wyatt was an English actor, singer, theatre manager and playwright.In a two-decade career on stage, Wyatt is best remembered for his roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1889 to 1891, and in particular for creating the role of the Duke of Plaza-Toro in Gilbert and Sullivan's hit...
.
The lease expired in 1895 and plans were drawn up by C. J. Phipps to rebuild the theatre, but they were opposed, apparently because the noise at the theatre disturbed patients at the Charing Cross Hospital
Charing Cross Hospital
Charing Cross Hospital is a general, acute hospital located in London, United Kingdom and established in 1818. It is located several miles to the west of the city centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham....
. The theatre was demolished in 1896 and the site used to extend Charing Cross Hospital. The site is now a part of the Charing Cross Police Station.