Comedy Theatre

Comedy Theatre, West End theatre built in 1881, the first theatre that Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree was to manage, from 1887. It was constructed in only six months; much of the original façade, including the sculpture of a lady with a lamp, still remains. It has a fairly small stage and capacity (approx. 800 seats), and so for most of its history has housed comedies and straight plays, rather than the more lavish musicals that comprise much of the staple fare of London’s West End theatres.

In 1956 the New Watergate Club was established by a group of theatre enthusiasts, who used the Comedy to present productions of plays that could not be performed legitimately because they fell foul of censorship regulations. These included Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams (produced at the Comedy in 1958), which had been condemned for treating the subject of homosexuality. By operating the theatre as a private club, the group was able to evade the regulations relating to public theatres.

Other notable productions have included Peter Shaffer’s debut Five Finger Exercise (1958), directed by John Gielgud, which ran for over 600 performances; A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1967) by Peter Nichols; a transfer of the long-running comedy There’s a Girl in My Soup (1969); and Savages (1973) by Christopher Hampton, starring Paul Scofield. Later, the Comedy hosted the popular rock and roll musicals The Rocky Horror Show (1979) and Little Shop of Horrors (1983); a revival of Trelawny of the Wells (1992) by Arthur Wing Pinero, starring Helena Bonham Carter and Michael Hordern; and in 1995 Zoë Wanamaker appeared in a Donmar production of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, directed by Sam Mendes. Edward Fox drew impressive notices for his performance as Harold Macmillan in the dramatization of the Profumo Affair A Letter of Resignation (1998), and a revival of The Caretaker by Harold Pinter, starring Michael Gambon, was highly acclaimed in 2000. In 2001 Ian Holm starred in another Pinter revival, The Homecoming, produced by the Gate Theatre, Dublin.