The girls’ quick-change area, backstage at the Theatre Royal
When composer and impresario Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber described the backstage area of the Theatre Royal Drury Lane as having ‘international historical significance’ he may have shown a certain bias. His Really Useful Theatre Company owns the theatre and in 2013 invested £4 million in its restoration. In this case, however, his special praise for the backstage goes beyond corporate pride. Out of the forty-plus theatres in London’s West End, Drury Lane is acknowledged to possess the best technical capabilities. It is a pioneer of special effects and stage machinery in the pursuit of disbelief suspended.
A taste for increasingly spectacular melodramas in the 1890s had inspired Drury Lane to mount productions with elaborate full-scale set pieces, including a chariot race for a production of Ben Hur and an avalanche and earthquake for other ‘sensation productions’ of the time. A melodrama called The Whip required the staging of a train crash and horse race. To handle some of the technical effects, special capability was required under the stage, and in 1898 a stage lift system powered by hydraulic rams was installed, which remains in place today. It was able to raise and lower two sections of the stage smoothly and silently, good for growing forests, sinking warships and raising heavenly choirs.
It was powered by high-pressure mains water, a form of power that thrived all across London before electricity was adopted, supplied by the London Hydraulic Power Company. Drury Lane’s fire safety fire curtain was also hydraulic. When mains water power came to an end, the hydraulic machinery lay intact but disused for many years. In 2006 the rams were removed to enable work to be done to fit a revolving stage for a production of The Lord of the Rings. Refitting the equipment was specified under the terms of the theatre’s listed status, and when replaced the hydraulic system was restored to working condition using its own independent hydraulic power pack.
The under-stage hydraulic system.
Another unseen feature in the technical area is the massive paint frame, claimed to be unique in the West End, which allows the largest backdrops to be created in-house. Most theatres have to outsource scenic cloth work. Much of the Drury Lane technical area rely on the comparative spaciousness of the building, the Theatres Trust profile of Drury Lane describes the backstage areas as ‘vast, unlike almost every other West End theatre’.
Fly floor.
Theatre Royal is also the oldest West End theatre, twice burned down, three times rebuilt. A bricked-up archway in the basement reputedly hides a tunnel used by King Charles II to secretly visit courtesan-actress Nell Gwyn, which may be mythology, although it was certainly Charles who granted a royal patent to the theatre.
The current building, the fourth, opened in 1812. A curious feature of the auditorium is that it has two designated Royal Boxes. According to theatre historians, this dates from when the theatre was new and there was a need to separately accommodate King George III and his son the Prince Regent, who hated each other. The staircases at Drury Lane are still referred to as the King’s and the Prince’s and the story may be true.
The auditorium from the King’s Royal Box, looking across to the Prince Regent’s Box, which is identified by a fleur-de-lis.
Theatre Royal’s last major interior rework was between 1921–2, which provided four tiers in a new auditorium, some 80 ft (24.5 m) in width and 85 ft (26 m) in depth, seating over 2,500 with the stalls accommodating 883 seats in three blocks divided by a cross aisle into nine front and sixteen back rows. Above the back stalls three large tiers are supported on cantilevered steel girders, free of obstructing columns. It became the Entertainments National Service Association headquarters in the Second World War. Across its history it has staged plays by Shakespeare and Sheridan, but since the days of the Victorian sensation productions has generally leaned towards the popular. Extravagant sets have long been a trademark. It set a trend and found good box office with post-war presentations of Rogers and Hammerstein musicals, starting with Oklahoma!, and then South Pacific, The King and I and Carousel. Drury Lane’s modern productions have included Miss Saigon for a ten-year-long run, Oliver! and Shrek The Musical.
The Star’s dressing room at Theatre Royal.
The capacity is now 2,196. The first phase of the latest 2013 restoration returned the front of house areas to their original Regency style, starting with the grand saloon, staircases and the rotunda.