Harold Pinter Theatre

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 18 September 2023 to amend the name and address and to reformat the text to current standards

TQ 2980 NE 71/88

CITY OF WESTMINSTER PANTON STREET, SWL (south side) Harold Pinter Theatre

(Formerly listed as The Comedy Theatre)

28.6.72

II

Theatre on corner site. 1881 by Thomas Verity. Stucco (or painted stone) and painted brick. Slate roof. Eclectic classical front or rather frontispiece. Two storeys. Five windows wide. Ground floor has grouped doorways under 1950s cantilevered canopy. Deep frieze and moulded cornice above which is a centrepiece of three enriched architraved and corniced windows with blind oeil-de-boeuf over, articulated by pilasters supporting entablature and pediment, and flanked by lower single bay wings. Plain return to Oxendon Street.

Although vestibule foyer and bars etc. mainly 1911 and 1933 alterations (with some further changes in 1955), the auditorium is essentially that of 1881 with three tiers of horseshoe shaped balconies on slender iron columns, the two lower tiers continued as side slip boxes. A pair of (formerly two-tiered) boxes with slightly bowed fronts flank the stage at dress circle level contained within an arch framed by columns on brackets. Square, architraved proscenium; the main entablature with palmette enriched frieze carried out over the boxes and with the frieze continued around the gallery; above the entablature pendentives, with relief decoration in the lunettes, carry decorated domed ceiling with elaborate plasterwork to ventilator rose. Some of the original wood drum-and-shaft flying machinery survives above the stage grid.

Survey of London; Vol. XX.

The Theatres of London; Mander and Mitchenson.

Listing NGR: TQ2975780585