Venice in London

The show was the brainchild of the caterer Joseph Lyons and his business partner Harold Hartley.

[4] As Hartley told it in his memoirs, Eighty-eight Not Out (1939): One evening later on Lyons, who had never travelled, asked me if I had ever been to Venice, as he had an idea that it might be reproduced with its canals in an attractive form.

Visions of the Grand Canal, with its churches, palaces, and gondolas flashed through my mind.

The event combined catering by Lyons, entertainments and opportunities to purchase souvenirs with a stage show designed and directed by the theatrical impresario Imre Kiralfy who specialised in spectacular events and lent his name to the production in order to increase its appeal to the public.

[2] It required the import of 100 gondolas from Venice with Venetian gondoliers.