Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: moderately-sized and improved theatre, with a restaurant attached, to be called the Gaiety. Mr. Lawson employed a rising architect (Mr. C. J. Phipps), who had previously built the Queen’s Theatre for him in Long Acre. They went over to Paris together, and took as their model the Theatre Lyrique, in the Place du Chatelet, copying the projecting balcony, with small private boxes round the back, instead of the old-fashioned
dress-circle, kept in a line with the supporting columns. Their theatre was practically open on four sides, though neither the Lord Chamberlain nor the Metropolitan Board of Works insisted, at that time, on any such structural conditions. The plan of the house and its title were settled before I heard that such a theatre was to be erected, and I am not, therefore, entitled to any credit that may attach to its construction. The idea of joining a restaurant to the theatre, where people could dine and walk from their dinner into the playhouse, or, after the performance, could walk from the playhouse into the restaurant to supper, was Mr. Lawson’s, not mine. I first heard of the proposed theatre from Mr. Dion Boucicault, who suggested that I should make an offer for the tenancy. I was on friendly terms with Mr. Lawson, and had written occasionally for the Daily Telegraph. I had been the stage director of the Alhambra for nearly three years, and had much to do in shaping the entertainments at that Palace of Varieties in the form they bear at present. I did not pose as a capitalist, particularly before areputed millionaire and a man of financial genius. I treated my means as a joke, but I got the theatre. A literary friend, of all people, whipped up a small syndicate of companions to support me, and we were duly registered as the
New Theatres Company, Limited…