Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
(their parts having previously been played by boys), but critics were sceptical about
their competence at portraying the fairer sex and thought their profession little better
than prostitution - most had to work at both to make ends meet (as the actress said
to the bishop). The scantily clad women who sold oranges to the audience were
considered even less virtuous, the most famous being
Nell Gwynne
who from the age
of 14 was playing comic roles on stage. At the age of 18, she became Charles II's
mistress, the first in a long line of Drury Lane actresses who made it into royal beds.
It was also at the Theatre Royal that
David Garrick
, as actor, manager and part-owner
from 1747, revolutionized the English theatre, treating the text with more reverence
than had been customary, insisting on rehearsals and cutting down on improvisations.
The rich, who had previously occupied seats on the stage itself, were confined to the
auditorium, and the practice of refunding those who wished to leave at the first interval
was stopped. However, an attempt to prevent half-price tickets being sold at the
beginning of the third act provoked a riot and had to be abandoned. Despite Garrick's
reforms, the Theatre Royal remained a boisterous and often dangerous place of
entertainment: George III narrowly escaped an assassination attempt, and ordered the
play to continue after the assassin had been apprehended, and the orchestra often had
cause to be grateful for the cage under which they were forced to play. The theatre has
one other unique feature: two royal boxes, instigated in order to keep George III and
his son, the future George IV, apart, after they had a set-to in the foyer.
Freemasons' Hall
60 Great Queen St • Mon-Fri 10am-5pm • Free • Guided tours Mon-Fri usually 11am, noon, 2, 3 & 4pm; free •
T
020 7395 9257,
W
freemasonry.london.museum •
!
Covent Garden
Looking east off Drury Lane, down Great Queen Street, it's di
cult to miss the austere,
Pharaonic mass of the
Freemasons' Hall
, built as a memorial to all the Masons who died
in World War I. Whatever you may think of this reactionary, secretive, male-dominated
organization, the interior is worth a peek for the
Grand Temple
alone, whose pompous,
bombastic decor is laden with heavy symbolism. To see the Grand Temple, sign up for
one of the
guided tours
and bring some ID with you. The Masonically curious might
also take a look at the shop, which sells Masonic merchandise - aprons, wands, rings
and books about alchemy and the cabbala - as do several outlets on Great Queen Street.
8
The Strand
As its name suggests the
Strand
- the main road from Westminster to the City - once
ran along the banks of the River Thames. From the twelfth century onwards, it was
famed for its riverside residences, owned by bishops, noblemen and courtiers, which
lined the south side of the street, each with their own river gates opening onto the
Thames. In the late 1860s, the Victorians built the
Embankment
, simultaneously
relieving congestion along the Strand, cutting the aristocratic mansions off from the
river and providing an extension for the tube and a new sewerage system. By the 1890s,
the mansions on the Strand were outnumbered by
theatres
, giving rise to the music-
hall song
Let's All Go Down the Strand
(have a banana!), and prompting Disraeli to
declare it “perhaps the finest street in Europe”. A hundred years later, several theatres
survive, from the sleek Art Deco Adelphi to the Rococo Lyceum, but the only surviving
Thames palace is
Somerset House
, which houses gallery and exhibition space, and
boasts a wonderful fountain-filled courtyard.
Charing Cross Station
The Strand begins at
Charing Cross Station
, fronted by the French Renaissance-style
Charing Cross Hotel
, built in the 1860s. Standing rather forlorn, in the station's cobbled
forecourt, is a Victorian version of the medieval
Charing Cross
, removed from nearby
Trafalgar Square by the Puritans. The original thirteenth-century cross was the last of
