The Lyric Theatre

The Lyric Theatre, dating to approximately 1767 and 1888, is a theatre complex situated on Shaftesbury Avenue in Westminster, and incorporating properties at 5 Archer Street, 16 Great Windmill Street, and 27-29 Shaftesbury Avenue. The earlier house front facing Great Windmill Street was designed by Robert Mylne and subsequently altered. This section is constructed from red brick with a slate roof and stands four storeys high, featuring five windows wide. The ground floor has been altered, while the upper floors feature recessed sash windows beneath flat, gauged arches. A stone cornice and blocking course runs along the top, and iron railings enclose a closed area. A London County Council plaque notes its former use as the house and museum of Sir William Hunter, the anatomist (1718-1783); the interior was radically altered to serve as dressing rooms for the theatre.

The 1888 theatre facade on Shaftesbury Avenue was designed by C. J. Phipps and displays an eclectic Italian-Flemish Renaissance style, notably dominated by an arcade theme. The building rises three storeys and an attic, with five major bays arranged in a 3:2:4:2:3 window rhythm, the central and end bays being pedimented pavilions. A ground-floor arcade with a canopied foyer entrance in the right-hand pavilion, and a taller semicircular arched doorway in the central pavilion (serving as an exit), are prominent. Upper floors include groups of arcaded windows, treated as loggias on the first floor of the pavilions, with the name of the theatre carved into the facade above the attic windows. The three pavilions feature arcaded and pedimented attics.

The interior was refurbished in 1932 by Michael Rosenauer, including the entrance vestibule, crush room, and stalls bar. The auditorium largely retains its original appearance from Phipps’s design, featuring three partly cantilevered balconies – the upper two horseshoe-shaped; the dress circle returns are straightened and partitioned into three boxes. A deep elliptical arched proscenium is adorned with an enriched tympanum, bordered by pairs of giant, pedestalled Corinthian columns framing three tiers of boxes. The ceiling is designed as a circular panelled composition. The stage incorporates a small revolve, and the stage grid contains a drum and shaft mechanism. Beneath the stage is an iron, stand-by hydraulic pump by Clark Burnett, installed in 1888.