Duchess Theatre

Duchess Theatre

Theatre, designed by Ewen Barr for Arthur Gibbons and built 1928-9. The interiors were designed by Marc Henri and Laverdet. The building is in Neo-Tudor style.

The street frontage comprises a steel-framed building clad in horizontal stone panels beneath a low parapet. The façade features three central canted bays supported on console brackets. These bays are decorated with cast panels showing the Tudor Rose, portcullis, Fleur de Lys, Prince of Wales feathers and carved initials "DT", between Crittall casement windows. The bays are linked by a large plinth that carries signage. A long canopy spans the entire façade, raised at its centre over a tympanum displaying the theatre's name beneath a crown and sunburst motif by Arnold Auerbach. Three pairs of double timber doors sit beneath this canopy. Pairs of windows in bays either side mark the emergency circle exits.

The entrance leads to a small entrance hall retaining cornice details and timber lining, though the ceiling laylight is now obscured. Stairs to the left descend to the stalls and ascend to private boxes; those to the right lead through a small crush bar to the circle. An octagonal crush bar occupies the former foyer, also featuring a disused laylight, cornices and moulded plasterwork; the octagonal motif is repeated in a wall mirror. The stalls corridors are lined in stippled plasterwork. The foyer area has a fluted cornice and laylights with metal grilles.

The auditorium is tall and narrow with double height and a single balcony. A saucer dome with dentil frieze tops the ceiling. Private boxes occupy the rear, an unusual feature, with those on the left accessed only from a separate stair. Side walls feature a lattice window motif flanking tripartite recesses set behind fluted baseless piers in antis over the side exits. These recesses originally contained low reliefs by Arnold Auerbach. Original 1929 balustrade and seat ends survive. The stalls are simpler, with lattice-patterned laylights beneath the balcony. Bronze relief decorative panels by Maurice Lambert flank the anteproscenium on either side of the stage, now usually concealed; these were added at the request of Mary Wyndham Lewis, wife of J B Priestley. The narrow stage reflects the building's limited space and its original specialisation in domestic drama.

The theatre retains most of its original decoration internally and externally, demonstrating the expertise of Henri and Laverdet as theatre decoration specialists. The Maurice Lambert panels are of particularly high quality. The planning achieves remarkable clarity and concision in accommodating all exits on a single façade—a surprising feat of design.