Scala Theatre

The theatre began on this site as The New Rooms where concerts were performed, in Charlotte Street, in 1772, under the management of Francis Pasquali.

Popularity, and royal patronage led to the building's enlargement by James Wyatt, and its renaming as the King's Concert Rooms (1780–1786).

[4] In 1865, in partnership with Henry Byron, Marie Wilton assumed the management of the theatre, having secured as a leading actor Squire Bancroft.

Other plays were W. S. Gilbert's Allow Me To Explain (1867; this ran as a companion piece to Robertson's Caste)[10] and Sweethearts (1874), as well as Tame Cats (1868), Lytton's Money (1872), The School for Scandal (1874), a revival of Boucicault's London Assurance (1877), and Diplomacy (Clement Scott's 1878 adaptation of Sardou's Dora).

A number of prominent actors played at the theatre during this period, among them John Hare, Charles Coghlan, the Kendals, and Ellen Terry.

A big success in 1881 was F. C. Burnand's The Colonel, which went on to run for 550 performances, transferring to the Imperial Theatre.

The new venture was not particularly successful and became a cinema, from 1911 to 1918, run by Charles Urban, who regularly showed Kinemacolor films there.

After the war, under the management of Prince Littler, amateur productions returned, with Peter Pan being the annual pantomime.

The Other Cinema opened in October 1976 in the basement of Scala House; it showed avant-garde films and closed in February 1977.