The
Old Vic is a theatre
located just south-east of Waterloo Station
in London
on the
corner of The
Cut
and Waterloo Road
. Established in 1818 as the
Royal Coburg
Theatre, it was taken over by
Emma
Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the
Royal
Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons,
Lilian Baylis assumed management and began a
series of
Shakespeare productions in
1914. The building was damaged in 1940 during air raids and it
became a
Grade II* listed
building in 1951 after it reopened..
It was also the name of a
repertory
company that was based at the theatre.
The company formed the
core of the National Theatre of Great
Britain
on its formation in 1963, under Laurence Olivier. The National Theatre
remained at the Old Vic until new premises were constructed on the
South
Bank
, opening in 1976. It underwent complete
refurbishment in 1985 and in 2003, American
actor Kevin Spacey was
appointed as new artistic director of the
Old Vic Theatre
Company which received considerable media attention.
History
Origins

Royal Coburg Theatre in 1822
The
theatre was founded in 1818 by James King and Daniel Dunn (formerly
managers of the Surrey
Theatre
in Bermondsey
), and Thomas Serres, then Marine painter to the
King who managed to secure the formal patronage of Princess Charlotte and
her husband Prince Leopold of
Saxe-Coburg naming the theatre the Royal Coburg
Theatre. The theatre was a "minor" theatre (as opposed
to one of the two
patent theatres)
and was thus technically forbidden to show serious drama.
Nevertheless, when the theatre passed to William Bolwell Davidge in
1824 he succeeded in bringing legendary actor
Edmund Kean south of the river to play six
Shakespeare plays in six nights. The theatre's role in bringing
high art to the masses was confirmed when Kean addressed the
audience during his curtain call saying "I have never acted to such
a set of ignorant, unmitigated brutes as I see before me."
When
Davidge left to take over the Surrey Theatre
in 1833 it was bought by Daniel Egerton and William
Abbott who tried to capitalise on the abolition of the legal
distinction between patent and minor theatres and also in 1833 the
theatre was renamed the Royal Victorian Theatre after the
heir to the throne Princess Victoria. In
1880, under the ownership of
Emma Cons to
whom there are plaques outside & inside the theatre, it became
The Royal Victoria Hall And Coffee Tavern and was run on
"strict
temperance lines"; by
this time it was already known as the
"Old Vic".
The
penny lectures given in the hall led to the foundation of
Morley
College
, an adult education
college, that moved to its own premises nearby, in the
1920s.
Old Vic company

The theatre at night
With Emma Cons's death in 1912 the theatre passed to her niece
Lilian Baylis, who emphasized the
Shakespearean repertoire. The
Old
Vic Company was established in 1929, led by
Sir John Gielgud.
Between 1925 and 1931,
Lilian Baylis championed the
re-building of the then-derelict Sadler's Wells
Theatre, and established a ballet company under the direction of Ninette de Valois. For a few years
the drama and ballet companies rotated between the two theatres,
with the ballet becoming permanently based at Sadler's Wells in
1935.
Wartime exile
The Old
Vic was damaged badly during the Blitz,
and the war-depleted company spent all its time touring, based in
Burnley,
Lancashire
at the Victoria Theatre during the years 1940 to
1943. In 1944, the company was re-established in
London with Ralph Richardson and
Laurence Olivier as its stars,
performing mainly at the New Theatre
(now the Noël Coward Theatre) until the Old Vic was
ready to re-open in 1950. In 1946, an offshoot of the company was
established in Bristol
as the Bristol Old Vic
.
National Theatre company
In 1963,
the Old Vic company was dissolved and the new National
Theatre
Company, under the artistic direction of Lord Olivier, was based at the Old Vic
until its own building was opened on the South Bank
near Waterloo Bridge
in 1976.

Stairwell of the Old Vic
In July 1974 the Old Vic presented a rock concert for the first
time. National Theatre director
Sir Peter Hall arranged for
the progressive folk-rock band
Gryphon to première
Midnight
Mushrumps, the fantasia inspired by Hall's own 1974 Old Vic
production of
The Tempest
starring
John Gielgud for which Gryphon
had supplied the music.
Reopening
After the departure of the NT, the Old Vic continued as a home for
classic and new drama, and was significantly restored under the
ownership of Toronto department-store entrepreneur
'Honest Ed' Mirvish in 1985. In 1998, the
building was bought by a new charitable trust,
The Old Vic
Theatre Trust 2000. In 2000, the production company Criterion
Productions was renamed
Old Vic Productions plc, though
relatively few of its productions are at the Old Vic theatre.
Current developments
In 2003,
actor Kevin
Spacey was appointed as new artistic director of the
Old
Vic Theatre Company receiving considerable media attention.
Spacey
said he wanted to inject new life into the British theatre industry, and bring British
and American
theatrical talent to the stage. He appears
in one or two shows per season, and performs some directorial
duties on other shows.
References
External links