Aldwych Theatre

The Aldwych Theatre was built as a pair with the Waldorf Theatre now known as the Novello Theatre, both being designed by W.G.R. Sprague. Funded by Seymour Hicks, in association with the American impresario Charles Frohman, and built by Walter Wallis of Balham. The Aldwych theatre opened on 23 December 1905 with a production of Blue Bell, a new version of Hicks' popular pantomime Bluebell in Fairyland. There can be no other theatre in the world which has two such distinct and diverse claims to fame as the Aldwych. During the period from 1925 until 1933 the theatre housed a series of farces by Ben Travers which have gone down in history as ‘The Aldwych Farces’. They included such familiar titles as A Cuckoo in the Nest, Rookery Nook, Thark, Plunder and A Cup of Kindness. Among the members of the company were Tom Walls, Ralph Lynn, Mary Brough, Winifred Shotter and Roberston Hare. Nearly 30 years later, on 15 December 1960, the Royal Shakespeare Company from Stratford-upon-Avon took over the Aldwych as its London base. During the next 21 years, prior to the company moving to its theatre in the Barbican, history was frequently made.