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Gieldgud Theatre
Théâtre à l'italienne
The Gieldgud Theatre is currently showing The
Ladykillers.
The theatre opened on December 27, 1906 as the Hicks
Theatre in honour of actor, manager and playwright Seymour Hicks, for whom it was built.
Designed by W.G.R. Sprague in Louis XVI style, the theatre originally had 970 seats, but
over the years boxes and other seats have been removed. The theatre is a pair with the
Queen's Theatre, which opened in 1907 on the adjacent street corner.
The
first play at the theatre was a musical called The Beauty of Bath by Hicks and Cosmo
Hamilton. My Darling, another Hicks musical, followed in 1907, followed by the successful
London production of the Straus operetta, A Waltz Dream in 1908.
An
astonishing event occurred midway through the run of the theatre's next major work, The
Dashing Little Duke (1909), which was produced by Hicks. Hicks' wife, Ellaline Terriss,
played the title role (a woman playing a man). When she missed several performances due to
illness, Hicks stepped into the role — possibly the only case in the history of
musical theatre where a husband succeeded to his wife's role
