Qualla: Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane: Introduction

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. An assassin took two shots at King George III in a London theatre on the night of 15 May 1800. James Hadfield, a soldier deranged by head wounds received fighting in Flanders, stood up from his seat in the pit of Drury Lane and raised a horse pistol toward the royal box, where the king sat with his family. A spectator named David Moses Dyte saw the gun rise and jostled Hadfield's arm. The first shot missed by inches. The second shot also missed. Hadfield was subdued. The king, apparently unruffled, ordered the performance to continue. He then took a calm nap during the interval. The play that night was a comic afterpiece called The Humourist. The theatre where this happened still exists, on the same site it has occupied since 1663 - the longest continuously used theatre site in the English-speaking world.

Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane: Four Buildings, One Site

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The Theatre Royal Drury Lane has burned down, twice, and been demolished, once, since Charles II granted Letters Patent in 1660 to Thomas Killigrew permitting him to establish a new theatre company. The first building opened on 7 May 1663. It burned in January 1672. The second bu...

Image: Public domain

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane: The Theatres Act and the Patent System

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Elisa.rolle, CC BY-SA 3.0. For most of its history the Theatre Royal occupied a strange legal niche. King Charles II's 1660 patent had created a monopoly. Together with the Theatre Royal Covent Garden and, briefly, the Lincoln's Inn Fields theatre, Drury Lane was one of only a small number of London venues...

Image: Elisa.rolle | CC BY-SA 3.0

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane: The American Decade

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Theaterbilder123, CC BY-SA 4.0. Drury Lane's 20th century was nearly bankrupt until Broadway saved it. Rodgers and Hammerstein's American musicals arrived after the Second World War and held the stage for almost a decade. Oklahoma! opened in April 1947 and ran for over three years. Carousel followed for 1950-51...

Image: Theaterbilder123 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane: The Man in Grey and Other Ghosts

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Tom Ogden's book Haunted Theatres of the World calls Drury Lane one of the most haunted theatres on Earth. The most famous ghost is the Man in Grey, who appears in the upper circle dressed as a late 18th-century nobleman - powdered hair under a tricorne hat, a long cloak, riding ...

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane: The First Theatre Lit by Gas

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Edward assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. Drury Lane has been responsible for several firsts in British theatre history. On 6 September 1817 it became the first British theatre to be entirely gaslit - the gas lights had already been extended to the audience areas, and that evening they were extended onto the stage itself...

Image: No machine-readable author provided. Edward assumed (based on copyright claims). | Public domain