While most of Adelaide has settled down for a well-deserved nap following the end of festival season, one favourite festival venue has no time to rest. Her Majesty’s Theatre is continuing its campaign to raise funds for its major upgrade, due to be completed in 2019. In 2013 Her Majesty’s Theatre celebrated its centenary with a beautiful book, Her Majesty’s Pleasure. What better time to look back on Adelaide’s beginnings as a ‘theatre town’ and the birth of what was originally to be called the Princess Theatre?
In 1913 Adelaide was home to around 200,000 people; another 210,000 lived elsewhere in the state. Electricity had lit the city’s streets since 1900 and, from 1909, powered the city’s tram network. In show business jargon, Adelaide was ‘a theatre town’. The city’s long theatrical history had begun in 1838 when the ballroom of the Adelaide Tavern in Franklin Street was transformed into a cramped but convivial playhouse. Many other theatres came and went until the city’s first major theatre, the opulent Royal in Hindley Street, opened in 1878, replacing two earlier, smaller theatres on that site. It established Hindley Street as the city’s main entertainment hub.
The Royal catered for the city’s thirst for ‘legitimate’ fare, hosting touring productions of drama, light opera, grand opera and pantomime. Meanwhile, minstrel shows and vaudeville found a home in what had originally been White’s Rooms in King William Street. In 1900 the Sydney-based vaudeville entrepreneur Harry Rickards transformed the 44-year-old venue into Adelaide’s first Tivoli Theatre, presenting there the same parade of international stars and upand- coming locals that were a staple of the other theatres on his busy Australia-wide circuit.
At the same time, Adelaide was quickly falling in love with the movies. Soon flickering films – silent, of course – were unreeling in any available hall, in tents, skating rinks or, in the warmer months, in the open air. One of the first al fresco venues was the Hippodrome in Grote Street, where movies were supplemented with vaudeville acts. Situated next to the markets, it was operated by entrepreneurs Lennon, Hyman and Lennon. In 1908 the American showman T.J. West leased the Cyclorama and transformed it into West’s Olympia, with seating for 2248 patrons. It was reborn in 1913 as the Wondergraph, the first of Adelaide’s grand picture palaces. It dominated Hindley Street, providing a provocative challenge to the Theatre Royal across the road.
There were new live theatres, too. In 1909 Lennon, Hyman and Lennon replaced their open air Hippodrome with a vaudeville theatre, the Empire, though it soon concentrated on films. Another vaudeville venture, the King’s in King William Street, opened in 1911, but it was an uncongenial venue, plagued by poor sightlines and inadequate ventilation. Meanwhile, the venerable Theatre Royal was looking decidedly shabby.
A spread from ‘Her Majesty’s Pleasure’ shows some of Adelaide’s theatres in 1910.
Clearly the entertainment business was booming – a fact not lost on Edwin Daw, a local identity best known as the man behind the city’s fish market and the associated ice-works. Mr Daw was the lucky owner of a large vacant site on the corner of Grote and Pitt Streets, directly opposite the markets and the Empire Theatre. A small stream meandered through the property, which became a favourite place for market stallholders to tether their horses and park their carts. In even earlier times a certain Richard George (better known rather unfortunately as ‘Flash Dick’) lived in a two-storey house on the site, and had stables there.
In those days the market didn’t just sell produce. There were amusements such as shooting galleries, hoop-la stalls and dart competitions, and a handsome first floor assembly room for weddings, balls and community gatherings. The market not only drew large crowds, it also attracted more shops, hotels and cinemas to the area. Canny Mr Daw realised that his empty block was an ideal site for a grand picture palace.
Daw discussed the idea with Albert (‘Bert’) Lennon, one of the trio running the Empire. Business there was booming, and the ‘House Full’ sign was out front most Friday and Saturday nights. A couple of years before, Lennon had gone into a new partnership with another showman, Bert Sayers. Sayers and Lennon Ltd were running successful shows in Broken Hill and were keen to expand to Adelaide. Daw offered the partnership a 30-year lease of the Grote Street site for the development of what was to be Adelaide’s finest cinema. The deal was signed in May 1912.
Three months later there was a change of plans. In August Adelaidians learned that the site was not to be used for a 2500-seat cinema, but for a 3000-seat live theatre to be built, they were assured, ‘on an elaborate scale’.
After that, things moved rapidly. By early October the partnership had commissioned designs from the prominent Adelaide architects David Williams and his brother-in-law Charles Thomas Good. Both South Australian born and trained, they designed everything from private homes to offices and warehouses – and the Majestic and King’s Theatres. Their other notable commissions included part of the Queen Adelaide Club in North Terrace, and St Stephen’s Lutheran Church in Wakefield Street. William Essery and John Hennessy were appointed contractors.
On 14 October 1912 Mrs Bert Sayers laid the foundation stone for Adelaide’s grand new theatre. She proudly announced that it was to cost £31,000, and that it was to be christened the Princess.
The architects’ elevation for what was originally to be called the Princess Theatre. A century later, the elegant Edwardian façade remains virtually unchanged. [Performing Arts Collection of South Australia]
Her Majesty’s Theatre is looking to raise $3 million to complete it’s renewal; you can donate here. Find out more about Her Majesty’s Pleasure here.