Street features
Every Covent Garden Street has its own history, some more desirable than others.
Please select street below and meet some of Covent Garden’s characters over the years.
- Please choose a street from the below -
The Aldwych
The opening scene of our personal history play begins with the demolition of some of the worst slums in London to make way for two new streets, two identical theatres and a world class hotel.
It was in the last years of the nineteenth century that this major construction project commenced. The 28 acre Aldwych and Kingsway scheme was the last and greatest of the Victorian metropolitan improvements. For a cost of around £5 million, it was a radical solution to the problem of Victorian traffic congestion and had a useful by-product of slum clearance and the provision of new homes in adjoining streets. It also allowed the Aldwych and Strand Theatres and the Waldorf Hotel to be constructed.
The Aldwych Theatre was designed by W.G.R Sprague in 1905 and was built for actor-manager-dramatist Seymour Hicks in association with the American impresario Charles Frohman. Seymour Hicks starred with his wife, Ellaline Terriss in the theatre's opening production, Blue Bell, a new version of Hicks' play A Bluebell in Fairyland.
Sprague was responsible for designing a number of London theatres and his style is seen as an excellent example typifying late Edwardian-Victorian London. The Aldwych Theatre is a twin of the Strand Theatre, originally called the Waldorf Theatre, and its style is a mix of Georgian and French Baroque classicism. The two were opened within 7 months of each other and both have a seating capacity of over 1000. The entire block where they are situated is an impressive and unified whole and reflects the broader Aldwych-Kingsway scheme that transformed Georgian and mid-Victorian London into an Imperial capital.
The scene had been set architecturally within a grand scheme for London, for the Aldwych to play a major part in London theatre land and life through the 20th century and beyond.
Act 1 A trip down Memory Lane
There is perhaps no other theatre that has two such distinct strands to its history as the Aldwych. Pre Second World War it is known as the home of the Aldwych Farces but from 1960 until 1982 it was the home of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Before the farces commenced noteworthy productions included the first performance in England of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard in 1909 - not greeted with great acclaim as reputedly the actors had little understanding of their roles, the critics found it gloomy and a lot of the audience walked out half way through. However it was revived by the RSC in 1961 and with Dame Judi Dench in 1989 returning triumphantly on both occasions.
A turning point for the theatre came in 1925 as it hosted several plays by Ben Travers that later gained the title of the Aldwych Farces. Plays such as A Cuckoo in the Nest (1925), Rookery Nook (1926) and Thark (1927) were responsible for making Ralph Lynn and Tom Walls famous at that time and proved hugely successful.
Around 1933 the theatre went through a lean period until wartime which surprisingly proved a period of success and great popularity. There were several sell-out performances despite the fact it was a time of rationing and financial hardship. The escapism theatre provided was needed even more during this time of national crisis. Plays such as Watch On The Rhine (1942) and There Shall Be No Night (1943) pulled in the crowds. Unfortunately enemy aircraft bombed London and while escaping severe structural damage, The Aldwych needed considerable repair to allow performances to begin again.
Indeed in post war years, the lower stage boxes were removed and the pit merged with the stalls seating. In addition the gallery underwent a slight transformation when it was extended into the upper circle through the removal of benches that were replaced by more contemporary 'tip-up' seats.
Post war most of the theatre's productions were rapid and short lived in order to gain maximum interest. An exception to this was the success of Gertrude Lawrence in Daphne Du Maurier's September Tide that ran for a full year until the first English production of Tennessee Williams' torrid A Streetcar Named Desire took over in 1949. Vivien Leigh gave an acclaimed performance as Blanche Dubois.
The next major stage in the theatre's history commenced in 1960 when the then named Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Company took over the Aldwych Theatre as their headquarters and London base. Peter Hall became artistic director and before the company moved in, alterations to the theatre took place. These included a new apron stage, similar to the one at Stratford that was created by bringing the forestage forward to the line of the stage boxes and eliminating the curtain. The interior was painted dark olive green to modernise the wartime look. The company moved in on 15 December 1960 with Peggy Ashcroft as The Duchess of Malfi and was renamed The Royal Shakespeare Company in 1961. It set new standards of Shakespeare production as well as leading the way in performing new and classical works with a superb ensemble of actors and inspired directors leading the way.
Productions throughout this period included Peter Brook's Midsummer Night's Dream, where trapezes were set up for the actors to 'fly' across the stage, Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, the series of Shakespeare's eight history plays, The Wars of the Roses, and their greatest hit in 1979, Nicholas Nickleby. In 1982 the RSC left the Aldwych for the Barbican after 21 years of magical theatre.
Interval
Three main characters in the life of Covent Garden and more specifically the life of the Aldwych Theatre take centre stage in its working history. Mimi Sullivan, Sandy Holmes and Maureen Travis have all seen the theatre and Covent Garden through decades of change and their tales of characters and events are testament to an era where the theatre played a more prominent role in society's entertainment and leisure time.
Each has their own personal history entwined with the theatres and has worked in the theatre bars and coffee shop throughout their careers. Mimi and Sandy are still happy to serve you a drink after 32 years working in the Dress Circle Bar and Maureen can still be found working in the Rear Stalls Coffee Bar.
As Londoners and more importantly Covent Gardeners, they are a mine of first hand information about life and events over the past 60 or 70 years. Mimi was born and grew up on Neal Street. Sandy came to the area when her family moved next door and has worked alongside her for many years. Mimi has vivid memories of her early life in Covent Garden including attending Macklin Street school and playing on the print barrels at Odham's Press, formerly situated on Long Acre. Her grandmother had a fish stall in the Dials and kept the fish in the cellar below to keep it fresh. That same fish stall location is now a Speedo shop. She remembers carrying jugs of tea to her grandmother along dark streets, as there was no street lighting in those days and flares used to light the way.
A picture emerged as we talked of a Covent Garden long gone. Drury Lane was home to shops selling pigs trotters, sheep heads and coal. All three ladies remember a particular baker's shop on Drury Lane. It wasn't until the News of the World ran an exposé in the 1950s that they realised he kept a brothel above the shop and was notorious in the area for scouting round Piccadilly looking for ladies of the night to work there.
Mimi started work at the Prince's Theatre, now the Shaftesbury Theatre and came across such legendary stars as Jessie Matthews, Kay Kendall and Richard Tauber, the famous Austrian operetta star of that period. Sandy started work at 16 when Mimi found her a job at the Whitehall Theatre. She left when the theatre changed hands and a catering company called Westby's at the Garrick Theatre asked her if she wanted to work for the Aldwych. She and Mimi started work there at the same time.
Maureen came to the Aldwych through her job at India House where she has worked since 1948. She met the RSC Theatre Manager, Sama Swaminathan who was based at the Aldwych at that time. Sama suggested she come and work in the Aldwych Theatre bookshop. She continues to work in India House today and has worked at the Aldwych Theatre for 25 years.
Their memories are peppered with anecdotes about stars and former members of staff. Working with the likes of Simon Callow, Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Judi Dench, Vivien Leigh and Trevor Nunn to mention a few, has become the norm for them. Their lives have been entwined with those who knew Charlie Chaplin, who were witness to elements of the Profumo scandal, who drank cocktails with Ingrid Bergman and chatted to Gregory Peck.
All agree that the general working atmosphere in theatreland has changed. Going to work was like going out socially according to Mimi. Theatre workers made work their social life as they were always at work in the evenings. As Peter Wilcox, General Manager at the Aldwych says: 'It was always said that there were two professions that had a calling, the church and the theatre.'
Nowadays with new regulations on working practices and restrictions on how things are done, the bar ladies feel some of the fun has gone out of the theatre, the 'characters' are dying out and it is becoming like any other business.
Audiences have changed too - theatre now competes with cinema and television and has to hold its own in more competitive way than previously. However the Aldwych has always had a good reputation in the theatre world as a friendly, well run establishment and Mimi, Maureen and Sandy have enjoyed their time there, contributing much to the life and spirit of the theatre.
Act II Contemporary Theatre Life
Life at the Aldwych certainly did not end with the RSC leaving. The theatre has hosted a number of successes since, including The Rise and Fall of Little Voice starring Jane Horrocks, Amy's View with Dame Judi Dench, Tom Stoppard's Jumpers with Paul Eddington and Felicity Kendal and The Importance of Being Earnest with Dame Maggie Smith. Many stars have trodden the boards from Diana Rigg to Alan Bates and Joan Collins. Photographs of many of the stars past and present can be viewed at the theatre today in the Rear Stalls Bar and upstairs in the Dress Circle Bar.
The theatre is once again owned by an American, James Nederlander, and run on his behalf by Michael Codron Plays Ltd. As such it can be seen to have come full circle, as it was an American back in the early 20th century who was the original owner.
