Little Theatre in the Adelphi

The Little Theatre stood in a narrow block between the Strand and the Thames, part of the Adam Brothers’ Adelphi development. Built in 1910 inside a former banking hall of Coutts, it seated 250 in a single tier of boxes and a small balcony. Gertrude Kingston, the first lessee, installed American dimmer lighting, the first in a British theatre. The opening play was Laurence Housman’s Lysistrata after censors banned his royal divorce drama. In January 1911 Noël Coward made his stage debut there. The theatre became a laboratory for new drama. Bernard Shaw’s Fanny’s First Play premiered in 1912 and ran for 622 performances. After war damage in 1917 it reopened in 1920 with 377 seats and improved stage machinery. Sybil Thorndike and Lewis Casson ran a two-year season of Grand Guignol melodramas. Beatrice Lillie headlined a 385-performance revue in 1922. Later, Nancy Price’s People’s National Theatre staged Galsworthy, Shaw and Ibsen alongside huge successes like Whiteoaks with 827 performances. Herbert Farjeon’s revues ran over 400 times each. A final German bomb in 1941 left the building empty until demolition in 1949.