Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Drury Lane Theatre in 1812 with a small group of sightseers on
the left admiring the new building.
Retrace your steps to Russell Street, and turn left to see the Theatre Royal Drury Lane
ahead. Confusingly, it faces Catherine Street, not Drury Lane.
The door to the Prince's Side in the lobby of Drury Lane Theatre.
Theatres on this site date back to 1663 and Nell Gwynne made her debut here. The ori-
ginal cellars, with charred remains of the stage floorboards on which she trod, are still in-
tact and may be open if you take a tour.
From 1737 theatres had to be licensed to perform plays and the only two licences granted
were for Drury Lane and Covent Garden. All the others had to skirt the law by putting on
puppet shows, pantomimes, sketches, burlettas and musical versions of plays. As a result,
the pressure on the two licensed theatres meant they became vast, with over three thousand
seats each.
A new Drury Lane theatre was opened in 1794 and it was here that in 1800 an attempt
was made on the life of George III. It burned down in 1809, the fire watched calmly by the
manager Richard Brinsley Sheridan as he sipped a glass of wine by his 'own fireside,' as
he wryly put it.
Rebuilt in 1811 -12, it is the oldest working theatre in London. Shortly after it was re-
opened, George III had a furious row with his son, the Prince Regent, in the circular lobby.
As a result the management created a separate Prince's Box facing the Royal Box so that
each had his own entrance and retiring room. In
Sense and Sensibility
it is in the lobby that
Willoughby learns of Marianne's illness from Sir John Middleton.
Edmund Kean's first appearance here was in 1814. On 3 March that year Jane wrote to
Cassandra:
