Savoy Theatre

The Savoy Theatre stands on the Strand in the City of Westminster, a West End theatre built on the site of the old Savoy Palace. Its red-brick and Portland-stone exterior faces the river, while inside the Italian Renaissance style uses white, pale yellow and gold. The auditorium has three tiers with four levels, seating 1,292, and the stage is 27 feet deep beneath a 30-foot proscenium arch. The main entrance once opened on the Embankment before moving to the Savoy Hotel’s Strand courtyard. The theatre opened on 10 October 1881 as the first public building lit entirely by electricity, powered by a 120-horsepower generator and 1,200 Swan lamps. Richard D’Oyly Carte intended it for Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operas, and the first night featured the trio taking curtain calls. Over the years it hosted premières of Wilde’s Salome and Coward’s Blithe Spirit, alongside opera, Shakespeare and musicals. The D’Oyly Carte Opera Company made it their home for more than a century, and the building was rebuilt in 1929 and again in 1993 after a fire. Inside, the stalls, pit, balcony, circle, amphitheatre and gallery all offer clear views of the stage. Carte introduced innovations such as numbered seats, free programmes and whisky in the bars. The auditorium’s decoration avoids cherubs and mythical figures, aiming for quiet elegance for a middle-class audience. The Strand entrance leads past the hotel courtyard, where the theatre’s modern foyer sits beside historic stone walls from the old palace.