Qualla: Shaftesbury Theatre https://qualla.com/shaftesbury-theatre en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:15 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/shaftesbury-theatre-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Shaftesbury Theatre https://qualla.com/shaftesbury-theatre Shaftesbury Theatre: Introduction https://qualla.com/shaftesbury-theatre/ Photo credit Ethan Doyle White, CC BY-SA 4.0. On the evening of 26 September 1968, Britain abolished theatre censorship. The Lord Chamberlain's office, which had spent two centuries deciding what could and could not be said or shown on a stage, was stripped of its powers. The very next night a musical called Hair opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue. It contained profanity, drug references, and a scene in which the cast appeared naked, all of which would have been unthinkable forty-eight hours earlier. The show ran for almost five years, ending only when part of the ceiling actually collapsed. The Shaftesbury has a habit of arriving at moments like that, where the rules change and the building is the room where the change becomes visible.

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Image: Ethan Doyle White | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/shaftesbury-theatre-wp/gcpv-shaftesbury-theatre-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Shaftesbury Theatre: Last in the Avenue https://qualla.com/shaftesbury-theatre/ Photo credit N Chadwick, CC BY-SA 2.0. The brothers Walter and Frederick Melville already ran the Lyceum, and they wanted a second theatre for the popular melodramas that filled their houses. They commissioned the architect Bertie Crewe to build it on a triangle of derelict property at the junction of Shaftesbury Aven...

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Image: N Chadwick | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/shaftesbury-theatre-wp/gcpv-shaftesbury-theatre-last-in-the-avenue.mp3 0:06 2 full Shaftesbury Theatre: Stars on a Soft Stage https://qualla.com/shaftesbury-theatre/ Photo credit Editor1000, Public domain. Melodrama paid the bills only briefly. From 1915 the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company moved in for an eighteen-week sellout season of Gilbert and Sullivan, including the first revival of Princess Ida since 1884. Sarah Bernhardt played the title role in Daniel in April 1921. In 1928, Fr...

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Image: Editor1000 | Public domain

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/shaftesbury-theatre-wp/gcpv-shaftesbury-theatre-stars-on-a-soft-stage.mp3 0:06 3 full Shaftesbury Theatre: The Most Expensive Flop https://qualla.com/shaftesbury-theatre/ Photo credit Ethan Doyle White, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Prince's closed for a complete rebuild in November 1962. The owners took the opportunity to grab the name of the older Shaftesbury Theatre further down the avenue, which had been bombed to a ruin in the Blitz and was not coming back. When the rebranded Shaftesbury Theatre reo...

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Image: Ethan Doyle White | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/shaftesbury-theatre-wp/gcpv-shaftesbury-theatre-the-most-expensive-flop.mp3 0:06 4 full Shaftesbury Theatre: The Night the Rules Changed https://qualla.com/shaftesbury-theatre/ Photo credit Oxfordian Kissuth, CC BY-SA 3.0. Theatre censorship in Britain ended at midnight on 26 September 1968. The next evening Hair opened at the Shaftesbury, billed as an "American Tribal Love-Rock Musical." Its nudity was carefully staged in stillness, its profanity strewn freely through the dialogue, and its anti-wa...

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Image: Oxfordian Kissuth | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/shaftesbury-theatre-wp/gcpv-shaftesbury-theatre-the-night-the-rules-changed.mp3 0:06 5 full Shaftesbury Theatre: Home of British Comedy https://qualla.com/shaftesbury-theatre/ Photo credit Shaftesbury1911, CC BY-SA 4.0. In the 1980s the actor, playwright, and impresario Ray Cooney founded the Theatre of Comedy, backed by a long list of British comic actors and writers. The company leased the Shaftesbury and later bought it outright. "We have the finest comedy talents in the world in this country...

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Image: Shaftesbury1911 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/shaftesbury-theatre-wp/gcpv-shaftesbury-theatre-home-of-british-comedy.mp3 0:06 6 full