Ten facts about Theatre Royal Nottingham’s 160 years

Theatre Royal in Nottingham is celebrating 160 years of entertaining the Midlands.

The theatre is currently enjoying a visit from the first UK tour of Dear England, which is coincidentally written by local lad – and former employee – James Graham.

We spoke to the award-winning playwright about his love for the city, which you can read all about here.

Georgina Donohue, heritage officer at the theatre, kindly sent us ten facts to celebrate the rich history.

The Theatre Royal was built in 1865

It was originally designed by Charles John Phipps and took only six months to build! The cost at the time was £15,000, that’s roughly £1,643,723.94 in today’s money.

Want to know the first show that played? Read on!

It was refurbished in 1897

Renowned architect Frank Matcham was called in to redesign the building’s layout just over 40 years after the building was built. He refurbished the Theatre Royal and also built the Empire Theatre next door.

Theatre Royal remained open during both World Wars

As paper was rationed, the programmes from this time are significantly smaller and on thinner paper.

Dracula himself has performed there!

Bela Lugosi, the Hungarian actor best known for creating the archetypal image of the world-famous vampire, played the key role on stage in Nottingham in August 1951.

Agatha Christie’s “lucky theatre”

The world-famous author chose Nottingham to premiere her then little-known show, The Mousetrap, in October 1952. It has, of course, since gone on to be the West End’s longest-running show.

Rockstars!

As well as theatre stars, of which there have been many, rockstars also play the Theatre Royal and Concert Hall! Notably, on 3 December 1967, Jimi Hendrix played a show, which featured guests including Outer Limits, The Move, The Nice, Pink Floyd, Amen Corner and Eire Apparent.

A second refurbishment

When the theatre was taken over by Nottingham City Council in the mid-1970s, it received its second refurbishment. In 1977, the council spent £4 million restoring the theatre to its former glory. The first performer to step onto the stage was Ken Dodd, who was instrumental in saving the theatre from closure, on 7th February 1978, with a three-week run of the Ken Dodd Laughter Show. Princess Anne officially reopened the Theatre Royal in June 1978.

A purr-fect record set!

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats had a seven-week run at the Theatre Royal in 1995. It took 30 technicians working day and night across three days to install 17 lorries worth of set, costumes, props, sound and lighting equipment. It all paid off – it was the first time in Theatre Royal history that a single show took over £1 million in ticket sales.

A revival 150 years later!

In 2015, a community cast revived the show that opened the theatre on 25 September 1865, The School for Scandal. The new version of Richard B Sheridan’s comedy was produced by the venue’s Creative Learning department and had costumes designed by students from Nottingham Trent University.

Oh yes, it is!

Over 400 performances take place at Theatre Royal each year, including drama, opera, ballet, comedies, musicals, and each year culminates with a pantomime. This year, Craig Revel Horwood will head up Cinderella!