The Theatre Royal

The Theatre Royal is Britain's oldest theatre in continuous use and the most complete surviving example of 18th-century theatre design. Built between 1764 and 1766 by James Paty, it was substantially altered in 1800 and redecorated in the late 19th century. The building underwent major external reconstruction and expansion between 1970 and 1972 by architect Peter Moro, which incorporated the adjacent Coopers' Hall (built 1743–44 by William Halfpenny) as part of a unified complex.

The original Theatre Royal consists of brick front walls and rubble side walls with a largely timber interior and hipped pantile roof. A 20th-century brick façade on a concrete frame surrounds the 18th-century interior. The frontage to King Street comprises a four-bay brick elevation with four gables positioned over first-floor windows and a blind ground floor serving the studio theatre. A glazed courtyard extends to the rear at first-floor level.

The Coopers' Hall, now the principal public entrance to the Theatre Royal, is constructed of limestone ashlar with rendered sides and a pantiled hipped roof behind a gable. Its facade is symmetrical, featuring a rusticated raised basement rising to a moulded band, rusticated quoins to the piano nobile, an entablature with bead and reel moulding, and a modillion cornice topped by an outer parapet with blind baluster sections. The centre projects forward, displaying a tetrastyle arrangement of attached Corinthian columns at first-floor level, a full attic storey crowned by a steep pediment containing the Coopers' Arms, and supporting consoles to either side. The basement contains segmental-arched openings—two to the right, the central one taller with plate glass, the outer one blind. First-floor windows are dressed with architraves, blind baluster aprons, pulvinated friezes, and alternating segmental and triangular pediments, with rectangular sunken panels above the 12-pane-over-12-pane sashes. Attic windows have architraves to 4-pane-over-8-pane sashes. The parapet formerly bore urns at the corner dies.

To the rear, on Rackhay, Peter Moro added a stage door entrance with offices and dressing rooms above, constructed in grey brick and banded exposed concrete with a boiler stack, featuring black metal strip glazing and doors.

The theatre interior follows a horseshoe plan. The auditorium features a shallow proscenium arch with two Corinthian pilasters flanking the stage boxes, pit and stalls below, with a circle and gallery added around 1800 supported on reeded Doric columns. Decorative elements from three periods are interwoven: rocaille and foliate ornament adorns the pilasters, the soffit of the proscenium arch, and the fronts of the stalls, circle and gallery, with entablatures to the two upper tiers and a relief of the Royal Arms on the circle front. The sides of the stalls and circle feature panelled arched timber screens with integral staircases. The ceiling contains a central composition of stars and cartouches. Some 18th-century pew-ended benches survive in the corners of the circle and gallery.

Peter Moro comprehensively remodelled the interior of Coopers' Hall. A low entrance with a paved floor and rectangular piers leads via stairs with steel handrails to a ticket desk and to a dogleg steel and glass staircase serving a broad balcony foyer. The 18th-century ceiling features a deep cove with dentil cornice, rosettes and chandeliers—a composite of styles and periods recalling contemporary work by architects such as Carlo Scarpa. Above is a rehearsal room with an exposed kingpost roof. Further stairs rise from the ticket desk into a bar and buttery inserted by Moro as a connecting link between the two historic buildings, with foyers served by a broad staircase featuring a thick black steel and timber balustrade. Original 1970s wallpaper in the inner foyer indicates Moro's initial scheme. A large-scale model of the stage demolished in 1968 is displayed in the foyer. To the right of the buttery lies a staircase serving backstage areas: suites of offices, dressing rooms, a tailoring shop and other facilities face Rackhay above the ground-floor stage door and green room, all with exposed concrete ceilings and exposed brick walls. Behind these lies a workshop with a paint frame opening to a large side stage and the main stage itself, which retains its grid with 31 flies and linked fly floors on both sides, a sloping stage with traps. The wardrobe and rehearsal room occupy the space above the workshop, with laundry and rest room facilities between. The studio theatre (the Young Vic), opened in 1972, occupies the King Street frontage and features entirely flexible seating with small galleries on either side; a former buttery area with a tiled floor now serves lunchtime performances.

The Theatre Royal received its licence and name in 1778; the Hanoverian arms date from this period. The ceiling was raised and the present gallery added in 1800 with partial redecoration. The original stage equipment survived into the 1960s. Notably, the famous "thunder-run"—a zigzag series of wooden troughs in the roof space above the auditorium ceiling for rolling cannon balls to create sound effects—still exists. The theatre was designed based on measured drawings of Drury Lane. Moro's 1970–72 work demonstrates exceptional understanding of theatrical operations, achieving a compact and practical solution with exemplary integration of the two historic elements.