The Apollo Theatre

The Apollo Theatre is a theatre of 1901, designed by Lewen Sharp with sculptural work by T. Simpson. The building is stone-faced, with plain brick to Rupert Street and Denmark Street. The Shaftesbury Avenue frontage is in a Free Renaissance style, featuring three main storeys and a tall attic. The front is three bays wide, with the outer two bays designed as pavilions with shallow canted fronts. There's an arcaded ground floor foyer and gallery-circle entrances, all under a glass canopy supported by elaborate ornamental iron brackets. The first floor has a central loggia and pedimented flanking windows. Above the main entablature sits an attic storey, characterised by enriched oeil de boeuf windows and a crowning cornice. The pavilion attics are treated as short circular turrets with shallow domes, exhibiting a somewhat Art Nouveau character and enhanced by large-scale figure sculpture.

The interior is richly decorated, though slightly simplified in 1932 by Schaufelberg. Features include a foyer and ante-room to the Royal Box, and an auditorium with elaborate plasterwork in a "Louis XIV" style. Three cantilevered balconies flow into the serpentine fronts of richly ornamental tiers of boxes flanking the proscenium. A single box is at stage level, with pairs at dress and upper circle levels, with modelled terms supporting the gallery "box" above. The proscenium is architraved, with a figure relief composition to the tympanum above. The auditorium ceiling is a richly ornamental shallow dome on pendentives. This was Lewen Sharp's only theatre design, although he also undertook alterations to the Camberwell Palace of Varieties in 1908.