Maddermarket Theatre

The Maddermarket Theatre stands in St John’s Alley in Norwich, a small playhouse built in the late 18th century as a Roman Catholic chapel. The building once housed a baking soda factory and a Salvation Army hall before Nugent Monck converted it in 1921. Monck had worked with William Poel, who restored Shakespeare’s plays to their full text and staged them in Elizabethan style. The theatre’s vaulted ceiling gives it excellent acoustics, and its three-sided gallery was already in place when Monck took over. The original space measured only forty by forty-six feet, yet it became the first permanent Elizabethan-style playhouse in Britain. The theatre’s stage occupies nearly half the floor, with a pillared canopy for painted curtains that allowed quick scene changes. The side galleries once held the first dressing rooms, while the gents’ room sits above the green room and the ladies’ behind the stage. In the 1960s a modern foyer and bar replaced medieval buildings at the front, though the site once grew madder plants, which gave the theatre its name. A major restoration in the 2000s rebuilt the stage as a thrust stage, adding seven feet and recreating the original curved gallery. The seating now holds 310, with steep tiers and 1930s cinema seats retained throughout. Visitors find an intimate space with Elizabethan details and a stage that juts into the audience. The auditorium’s plaster barrel-vault and original pillars create a sense of history, though some features were covered over time. The foyer and bar sit beside Strangers’ Hall, a museum that backs onto the theatre’s rear wall. The stage’s half-hexagon thrust and the rebuilt gallery restore Monck’s vision, while the painted curtains return for productions. The theatre remains a living playhouse, staging performances today under the guidance of its current chair.