Hazlitt Theatre

The Hazlitt Theatre stands in Maidstone, Kent, inside a Grade II listed building on Earl Street. The older part was built in 1835 as a corn exchange with a long stucco frontage and a colonnade of Tuscan columns. The newer section, added in 1869, served as a concert hall with a pediment carved with corn and the words ‘The Corn Exchange’. Nikolaus Pevsner criticised the design as an ‘ugly mid-19th century arcading’. The ground floor later became shops while the first floor became the Exchange Studio. The theatre’s name honours William Hazlitt, born in Maidstone in 1778, who gave it lasting fame. In 1955 the concert hall became the Maidstone Municipal Theatre, renamed the Hazlitt in the mid-1960s. A plaque for children’s presenter Tony Hart was unveiled in 2009 by his daughter Carolyn Williams. The Hazlitt Youth Theatre, founded in 1996, nearly lost its funding in 2020 when the council claimed it was poor value for money. After a protest song and a 6,000-signature petition led by Darren Clark, Devon Cable and Lee Bradley, the council reversed its decision in 2021. Visitors find two venues under one roof: the Hazlitt Theatre seats 382 and the Exchange Studio seats 200. The complex still hosts pantomimes and productions by the Hazlitt Institute’s youth programme. Recent shows have included full-length versions of Shrek the Musical and The Sound of Music. The Exchange Studio occupies the former corn exchange assembly room on the first floor. The ground-floor colonnade links the two sections and frames views of Earl Street.