Her Majesty's Theatre

Her Majesty's Theatre

Theatre built 1896-97 by C.J. Phipps for the actor Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, with interior decoration by consulting architect Romaine Walker. The building is stone faced with leaded and slate roofs. The remaining pavilion portion is of a large symmetrical design in a French Renaissance inspired style with a large pavilion roof and dome combined with more Italianate detailing at attic level.

The building has four storeys with an attic storey and half dormers. The main elevation is nine windows wide with a three window return to Charles II Street, continued in a long recessed five storey side elevation. The ground floor range consists of the foyer and saloon, with balcony doorways to the five bay centrepiece situated between piers. The outer doorways are architraved with framed bay lights over, all under an elegant glass and iron canopy. The first and second floors have a giant pilaster order, and the five bay centrepiece is advanced with a giant Corinthian colonnade forming a loggia in front of the architraved and corniced windows. On the fourth floor the five central bays are flanked by pairs of elaborately pedimented half dormers below the French mansard roof. Over the centrepiece rises a square attic carrying a massive square French dome astride the roof, surmounted by a slender octagonal lantern with a spreading gallery.

The interior features a wainscotted foyer with Ionic pilaster order and beamed ceiling with deeply recessed coffers above a rich frieze. The auditorium has fanned stalls, cantilevered balconies and gallery with an opulent but refined French neoclassical theme inspired by Gabriel and DeWailly's Opera at Versailles. There is a scagliola proscenium flanked by three tier boxes set between scagliola Corinthian columns. The curving side walls of the auditorium are modelled as blind arcading with paired Corinthian pilasters and enriched cornice to the main ceiling, which has a large saucer dome. This was Phipps's last work. Beerbohm Tree had the dome fitted with a banqueting hall and living room, using the space as his home during his management of the theatre from 1897 until his death in 1917. Her Majesty's is the fourth royal patent theatre located on this site since Vanbrugh's building of 1704-5. The adjoining Royal Opera Arcade, which once had an entrance to the theatre, is separately listed at Grade I.

The theatre was a site for protests by the Women's Social and Political Union, the militant suffrage organisation founded by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903. Suffragettes used theatres and restaurants to stage protests, as these provided audiences for the suffragette message. Theatre protests became popular after 1913 when owners of many public halls refused to hire them out for suffragette meetings. In the West End, suffragettes would target theatres simultaneously to ensure press coverage.

The theatre witnessed some of the most widely-reported protests between 1913 and 1914. In May 1914, protesters targeted a performance attended by the King and Queen with Princess Mary, and one woman attempted to hand a petition to the King upon arrival. Inside the theatre the play was interrupted by protestors in the stalls, on the stage and in the orchestra pit, and the audience was showered with suffragette leaflets thrown from the gallery. Two women who refused to reveal their identities were arrested and gaoled. In June, a suffragette in the upper circle interrupted a monologue by Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree to protest against the treatment of suffragette prisoners. When she was ejected, another woman who had chained herself to her seat continued the protest. The protesters were treated very violently outside the theatre.