Ovalhouse

Ovalhouse was a small theatre in Kennington, south London, set beside the Oval cricket ground. It started in the 1930s as a club for young people from poorer parts of South London, offering sport and training. In the 1960s Peter Oliver changed it into a theatre and staged Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey. The place became a home for experimental companies, gay and women’s theatre, and new writing by Black and Asian authors. Over the years it helped launch careers of Steven Berkoff, Tamsin Greig, Tim Roth and others. Inside the old building were two theatres, a café-bar, gallery and rehearsal rooms. The café-bar also hosted live music and spoken-word nights after 2011. A youth department ran programmes for young people and vulnerable adults. One scheme gave 18–25-year-olds a route into professional theatre. The building closed in 2020 when the company moved to Brixton. The old site included a Grade II listed former vicarage called the White House. A blue plaque marks the birthplace of Field Marshal Montgomery. Both buildings were sold to the cricket club for conversion into hotel rooms. The Ovalhouse theatre itself will be demolished, while the White House will be refurbished.