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Architect : Walter Emden & C J Phipps
Opened : 24 April 1889
Seats : 656 on 3 levels
Owned by : Nimax Theatres
The Garrick Theatre was financed in 1889 by the playwright W. S. Gilbert, the author of over 75 plays, including the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas. It was designed by Walter Emden, with C. J. Phipps brought in as a consultant to help with the planning on the difficult site, which included an underground river. Originally the theatre had 800 seats on 4 levels, but the gallery (top) level has since been closed and the seating capacity reduced to 656.
A proposed redevelopment of Covent Garden by the GLC in 1968 saw the theatre under threat, together with the nearby Vaudeville, Adelphi, Lyceum and Duchess theatres. An active campaign by Equity, the Musicians' Union, and theatre owners under the auspices of the Save London Theatres Campaign led to the abandonment of the scheme.
The gold leaf auditorium was restored in 1986 by the stage designer Carl Toms, and in 1997 the front façade was renovated. The theatre has mostly been associated with comedies or comedy-dramas.
Sydney Grundy's long-running French-style comedy A Pair of Spectacles opened here in February, 1890. Mrs Patrick Campbell starred five years later in Pinero's The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith. Afterwards, the theatre suffered a short period of decline until it was leased by Arthur Bourchier, whose wife, Violet Vanbrugh, starred in a series of successful productions ranging from farce to Shakespeare. In 1900, the theatre hosted J. M. Barrie's The Wedding Guest. Rutland Barrington presented several stage works at the Garrick, including his popular "fairy play" called Water Babies in 1902, based on Charles Kingsley's book, with music by Alfred Cellier, among others. The only piece actually premiered by W. S. Gilbert here was Harlequin and the Fairy's Dilemma (retitled The Fairy's Dilemma after a few days) a "Domestic Pantomime" (1904). In 1921, Basil Rathbone played Dr. Lawson in The Edge o' Beyond at the Garrick, and the following year Sir Seymour Hicks appeared in his own play, The Man in Dress Clothes. In 1925 Henry Daniell played there as Jack Race in Cobra and appeared there again as Paul Cortot in Marriage by Purchase in March 1932.
More recent productions are listed below and include No Sex Please, We're British (1982), which played for four years at the theatre before transferreing to the Duchess Theatre in 1986. On October 24, 1995, the Royal National Theatre's multi-award winning production of J. B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls opened here, having played successful seasons at the Royal National Theatre's Lyttelton and Olivier theatres as well as the Aldwych Theatre and a season on Broadway.
In 1986, the Garrick was acquired by the Stoll Moss Group, and, in 2000, it became a Really Useful Theatre when Andrew Lloyd-Webber's Really Useful Group and Bridgepoint Capital purchased Stoll Moss Theatres Ltd. In October 2005, Nica Burns and Max Weitzenhoffer purchased the Garrick Theatre, and it became one of five playhouses opearating under their company name of Nimax Theatres Ltd.
The interior retains many of its original features, and was Grade II* listed by English Heritage, in September 1960.
Past Productions
1889 Sir John Hare produced and starred in The Profligate with Johnstone Forbes Robertson and Lewis Waller.
1895 The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith by Arthur Wing Pinero starred Mrs Patrick Campbell.
1900 Arthur Bouchier took over management with his wife Violet Vanbrugh and had the first of a series of successes with J M Barrie’s The Wedding Guest.
1905 The Walls of Jericho by Alfred Sutro ran for almost a year.
1911 The Unwritten Law was a stage version of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Oscar Asche took residence for a season with his wife Lily Brayton presenting Count Hannibal, The Merry Wives of Windsor and a revival of their popular success Kismet.
1915 Arthur Bouchier relinquished management.
1918 By Pigeon Post, a play by Austin Page, was the first production after C B Cochran becomes lessee.
1919 Cyrano de Bergerac.
1922 Sir Seymour Hicks appeared in his own play The Man in Dress Clothes.
1924 André Charlot presented The Rat by Ivor Novello and A E Abrahams took over the lease.
1926 The Ghost Train by Arnold Ridley successfully transferred to the theatre.
1927 An adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
1928 The Moscow Art Theatre Company visited with a short season of plays by Chekov, Gorki, Ostrovsky and Tolstoy. Jean Forbes Robertson starred as Peter Pan.
1929 Edith Evans as The Lady With the Lamp.
1930 Tallulah Bankhead played Marguerite in The Lady of the Camelias.
1935 Love on the Dole with Wendy Hiller and Cathleen Nesbitt.
1937 A A Milne’s comedy Sarah Simple.
1943 An adaptation of Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock.
1946 Beatrice Lillie headlined the revue Better Late and Jack Buchanan became the next actor/manager.
1947 Laurence Olivier directed Born Yesterday and Buchanan starred with Coral Browne in a revival of Frederick Lonsdale’s Canaries Sometimes Sing.
1950 Richard Attenborough and Yolande Donlan transferred from the Savoy with To Dorothy a Son.
1953 Buchanan returned with Dorothy Dickson in As Long as They’re Happy.
1955 The revue La Plume de Ma Tante was an enormous success, during the run of which Jack Buchanan died (1957).
1958 Dora Bryan in Living for Pleasure.
1959 Margaret Rutherford and Peggy Mount lead the cast in Farewell Farewell Eugene.
1960 The Stratford East production of Lionel Bart’s Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be began a long run with Miriam Karlin.
1962 Sheila Hancock starred in Rattle of a Simple Man.
1967 Brian Rix presented and appeared in Stand by Your Bedouin, the first in a season of farces including Uproar in the House and Let Sleeping Wives Lie.
1971 The last of these farces was Don’t Just Lie There Say Something.
1972 Anthony Shaffer’s Sleuth transferred.
1973 Dandy Dick starred Alastair Sim.
1975 Robert Stigwood presented Aspects of Max Wall for a six-week sell-out season.
1976 Richard Beckinsale headlined the risqué comedy Funny Peculiar.
1977 Side by Side by Sondheim transferred and was a continuing success with its third cast.
1978 Ira Levin’s thriller Deathtrap began a long run into 1981.
1982 No Sex Please We’re British transferred from the Strand and remained until 1986 when it transferred again to the Duchess.
1986 The Garrick was acquired by Stoll Moss Theatres and refurbished. It reopened in November with Judi Dench and Michael Williams in Mr and Mrs Nobody.
1987 William Gaunt and Susie Blake in When Did You Last See Your Trousers? by Ray Galton and John Antrobus.
1988 Jane How and Zena Walker transferred from the King’s Head, Islington, in Noël Coward’s Easy Virtue.
1989 Another Coward success with Rupert Everett and Maria Aitken in The Vortex. Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good transferred from the Royal Court.
1990 Short seasons of Bent with Ian McKellen and Michael Cashman, Frankie Howerd and Fences with Yaphet Kotto are followed by the first major West End transfer from the newly-managed Almeida Theatre, Islington, with The Rehearsal by Jean Anouilh.
1991 Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa transferred from the Phoenix (after the National).
1993 John Godber’s On the Piste and Steven Berkoff’s One Man.
1994 Tom Courtenay in Moscow Stations and a festive season with Fascinating Aida.
1995 The Live Bed Show with Paul Merton and Caroline Quentin, the Abbey Theatre production of Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars and Clarke Peters in Unforgettable – The Nat King Cole Story, precede the arrival of the Royal National Theatre’s An Inspector Calls, which began its second prolonged season in the West End.
2000 The Garrick became a Really Useful Theatre when Lord Lloyd-Webber’s Really Useful Group and Bridgepoint Capital purchased Stoll Moss Theatres Ltd.
2001 Feelgood transferred from Hampstead Theatre followed by J B Priestley’s Dangerous Corner.
2002 The hit British premiere production of This is Our Youth plays two seasons either side of a successful run of The Lieutenant of Inishmore.
2003 The year began with the fourth cast of This is Our Youth prior to the opening of Jus’ Like That!, Ross Noble and Wait Until Dark.
2004 Ricky Gervais workshoped his latest stand up venture, Politics, followed by a revival of David Mamet’s Oleanna and The Solid Gold Cadillac starring Patricia Routledge and Roy Hudd.
2005 Sheila Hancock returned to the scene of her West End debut as Mum in The Anniversary.
2006 You Never Can Tell by Theatre Royal Bath and the reprise of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest starring Christian Slater and Alex Kingston (Nica Burns, Max Weitzenhoffer and Ian Lenegan).
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