Queen's Theatre, Long Acre

The Queen’s Theatre once stood on the corner of Long Acre and Endell Street in the heart of Covent Garden. Built in 1867 on the site of St Martin’s Hall, it replaced a large concert room that had opened in 1850. The theatre had entrances in Wilson Street and Long Acre and could seat 4,000 people, making it one of the biggest in London. Its interior was decorated by Albert Moore and Telbin, and it opened with a production of Charles Reade’s The Double Marriage. The building was designed by C. J. Phipps for Henry Labouchère and his partners. The theatre quickly became a stage for London’s leading actors and playwrights. Its early company included Charles Wyndham, Henry Irving, Ellen Terry and J. L. Toole. Productions ranged from Shakespeare revivals to burlesques by W. S. Gilbert. In 1877 it briefly became the National Theatre, hosting promenade concerts and an ambitious staging of The Last Days of Pompeii. The same year, public demonstrations of the Cromwell Varley telephone were held there. Today the site is part of modern Camden, though the theatre’s façade was removed in the 1970s. The interior once held a grand domed iron roof and a large drum-like apparatus for early telephone demonstrations. St Martin’s Hall had earlier hosted Charles Dickens as a public lecturer and the founding of the First International in 1864. The building’s Elizabethan style and its role in London’s theatrical history remain part of the area’s story.