Known in the business as "The Lane", this is the oldest theatre in London (with all due respect to the reconstructed Globe - see the chapter on The Globe and Shakespeare). As if designed to confuse tourists, the Theatre Royal's entrance is not actually sited on Drury Lane (which runs past the back of the building) but on the less well-recognised (but far more attractive) Catherine Street.There have been several buildings on the site, a fact explained partly by successive managements' need to increase the size and facilities of the building, and partly because of that perennial London problem in previous centuries - fire.
The Theatre Royal was established by the granting of a Royal Charter by King Charles II, and this charter, the pride of the theatre, used to be displayed on the cover of every Drury Lane programme, until modern marketing and design did away with it. An understandable change, but an unfortunate loss.
After Charles' father, Charles I, had been beheaded by Oliver Cromwell's regime in 1649, the monarchy had been abolished and with it went the theatre, which was seen as an ungodly and licentious entertainment. When the monarchy was restored with Charles II's return from exile in 1660 (hence the Restoration period of history, usually applied to the years up to his death in 1685), the theatre was restored too.
Despite the King's love of the stage, permission to perform was strictly prohibited, except by licence, given that plays could easily be used for anti-govemment propaganda. After all, it was following a performance of Shakespeare's Richard II, a play about the deposition of a King, that the Earl of Essex led his ill-fated rebellion against the ageing Queen Elizabeth. The granting of the King's licence was, therefore, vital to respectability and official approval. For many years only two theatres enjoyed this - the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and the Theatre Royal, Haymarket (see the chapter on West End theatres) hence their names.
The Theatre Royal saw many visits from King Charles, though he was attracted not so much by the plays as by the female players - another change that he had brought about, for earlier in the century, during his father and grandfather's reigns, female parts had been played by teenage boys.
Charles had many mistresses but the most famous, and certainly the most popular, was Nell Gwynn, an actress at Drury Lane. She had started her theatre career as an orange seller, which was something of a cross between an usherette and a prostitute. Graduating to the stage, she demonstrated a talent as a light comedienne, and caught the King's eye, and later his heart.
One could write a book on Nell Gwynn alone, but we must move on, leaving her to her place in history, along with all the other ghosts of past performers. Many theatres have a resident ghost, and Drury Lane has a mysterious figure in eighteenth century clothes. Workmen digging away at a wall as part of a refurbishment project found the skeleton of a man, dating from this period, with a dagger in his ribs, so perhaps the ghost story is well founded! The theatre, now owned by Stoll Moss, the largest theatre chain in the West End, organises frequent tours (details from the box office), in which this and many other stories and anecdotes relating to the theatre can be heard.
Next: The Lyceum Theatre
Copyright © 1998
by Elizabeth Sharland. All rights reserved.