St James's Theatre
During the run it emerged that a property developer had acquired the freehold of the theatre and obtained the requisite legal authority to knock it down and replace it with an office block.
In 1878 Old and New London commented that the St James's Theatre owed its existence "to one of those unaccountable infatuations which stake the earnings of a lifetime upon a hazardous speculation".
[1] John Braham, a veteran operatic star, planned a theatre in the fashionable St James's area, on a site in King Street, bounded by Crown Passage to the west, Angel Court to the east and buildings in Pall Mall to the south.
[3] The theatre, which cost Braham £28,000,[1] was designed with a neo-classical exterior and a Louis XIV style interior built by the partnership of Grissell and Peto.
[4][n 1] This ran for a month before being replaced by one of the few successes of Braham's tenure, another bill containing an operetta – Monsieur Jacques – and a farce, The Strange Gentleman, by "Boz" (Charles Dickens).
In 1842 John Mitchell (1806–1874), a bookseller and founder of the Bond Street Ticket Agency, took over, reverted the name to the original, and ran the St James's for twelve years, with much artistic success but little financial return.
He presented French plays with the greatest stars of the Parisian stage, including Rachel, Jeanne Plessy, Virginie Déjazet and Frédérick Lemaître.
[11] Mitchell had a fondness for international entertainments, and presented German conjurors, Tyrolean singers, dramatic readings by Fanny Kemble, P. T. Barnum's infant prodigies – Kate and Ellen Bateman, aged eight and six – in scenes from Shakespeare, and, most popular of all, the Ethiopian Serenaders who enthused London about the American-style minstrel shows, a form of entertainment that remained popular for decades.
[14] The house was once again dark for most of 1856, but in 1857 the theatre returned to royal and public favour when Jacques Offenbach brought his opéra bouffe company from Paris, with a repertoire of nine of his works.
He presented a season, mainly of Shakespeare, by the popular actor Barry Sullivan, and staged F. C. Burnand's first major play, a burlesque called Dido, which ran for 80 performances.
There were successful productions of John Poole's Paul Pry, Fernande (in which Fanny Brough made her London debut), Anne Bracegirdle, and Jenny Lind at Last.
[24] In one of her productions at the St James's, a work by Gilbert, Tom Cobb, was in a triple-bill with The Zoo, a short comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan.
[27][n 5] Another of Litton's productions was a double bill of revivals of Frank Marshall's farce Brighton and William Brough's burlesque Conrad and Medora, in which she co-starred with Henrietta Hodson.
[29] When Litton left for another theatre in 1876, first Horace Wigan, and then Mrs John Wood made brief returns to management at the St James's, the latter with some success in The Danischeffs, which ran to good houses for more than 300 performances.
"[33] A historian of the St James's, Barry Duncan, heads his chapter on this phase of the theatre's history, "John Hare and the Kendals: Nine Years of Steady Success".
[40] Wearing regards The Money Spinner (1881) as of particular importance to this period of the theatre's history, being the first of several of A. W. Pinero's plays staged there by Hare and the Kendals.
It was regarded as daringly unconventional and a risky venture, but it caught on with the public, partly for Hare's character, the "disreputable but delightful old reprobate and card-shark" Baron Croodle.
[40] Among the company in these years the actresses included Fanny Brough, Helen Maud Holt, and the young May Whitty;[38][41] among their male colleagues were George Alexander, Allan Aynesworth, Albert Chevalier, Henry Kemble, William Terris, Brandon Thomas and Lewis Waller.
He recruited a talented company, giving Olga Nethersole, Julia Neilson, Allan Aynesworth and Lewis Waller their London debuts, but met financial disaster when his first two – and in the event his only – productions, The Dean's Daughter by Sydney Grundy and Brantinghame Hall by Gilbert, were both complete failures.
Arthur Bourchier, who had been playing in her company, took on the remainder of the lease, presenting Your Wife, an English version of a French farce,[48] but poor box-office takings forced him to close the piece within a month.
[51] When Alexander took over the St James's he had only eleven years' professional experience in the theatre, but the historians J. P. Wearing and A. E. W. Mason both note that he had already reached a firm and enduring managerial policy.
Among the actresses he engaged for his companies were Lilian Braithwaite, Constance Collier, Kate Cutler, Julia Neilson, Juliette Nesville, Marion Terry and Irene and Violet Vanbrugh.
[55] Within a year of taking over the St James's, Alexander began a mutually beneficial professional association with Oscar Wilde, whose Lady Windermere's Fan he presented in February 1892.
The celebrated novelist Henry James had written a play, Guy Domville, about a hero who renounces the priesthood to save his family by marrying to produce an heir, but finally reverts to his religious calling.
[60] At the end of 1899 Alexander closed the theatre to have it largely reconstructed, producing what The Era called "one of the handsomest temples of the drama in London", while retaining its charm and cosiness.
[68] In September 1925 du Maurier and Gladys Cooper took a sub-lease of the theatre to present The Last of Mrs Cheyney by Frederick Lonsdale (1925), which ran for 514 performances, until the end of 1926.
[69] In 1929, Alfred Lunt made his London debut, starring with his wife Lynn Fontanne in Caprice, presented by C. B. Cochran, a comedy about a man, his two mistresses, and his son by one of them who falls in love with the other.
[84] During the run of Separate Tables it became known that a property developer had acquired the freehold of the theatre and had obtained the requisite permission from the London County Council (LCC) to demolish the building and replace it with an office block.
The LCC ordered that no further theatres would be demolished in central London without a planned replacement, but neither the national nor the local government would intervene to prevent the destruction of the St James's.
Four bas-relief panels by Edward Bainbridge Copnall depicted the heads of Gilbert Miller, George Alexander, Oscar Wilde and the Oliviers.
