Qualla: Theatre Royal Haymarket

Theatre Royal Haymarket: Introduction

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK, CC BY 2.0. The actor-managers used to joke that the Haymarket had two leading men: whoever was billed, and John Baldwin Buckstone. Buckstone died in 1879, but theatergoers and cast members still report seeing him in the wings on comedy nights - most famously, Patrick Stewart, who told The Daily Telegraph in 2009 that he saw the Victorian manager standing in the shadows during a 2009 performance of Waiting for Godot. Whether or not you believe in ghosts, the building itself certainly remembers. A playhouse has stood on this slice of Haymarket since 1720, making the Theatre Royal the third-oldest London theatre still in use. Inside its John Nash colonnade, every brick has heard somebody die well and somebody else be born to it.

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Image: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK | CC BY 2.0

Theatre Royal Haymarket: The Carpenter's Gamble

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit George Jones, Public domain. The whole enterprise began as a side hustle. In 1720 a carpenter named John Potter put up £1,500 - £1,000 for construction, £500 for scenery and costumes - on the site of the King's Head Inn and a gunsmith's shop trading under the sign of the Cannon and Musket. He called his spec...

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Image: George Jones | Public domain

Theatre Royal Haymarket: Foote's Royal Patent

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fernando Losada Rodríguez, CC BY-SA 4.0. Samuel Foote was a comic actor who lost a leg in a riding accident as the guest of the Duke of York. The duke felt guilty enough to help Foote secure something extraordinary in 1766: a royal patent to perform legitimate spoken drama during the summer months. London had previously...

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Image: Fernando Losada Rodríguez | CC BY-SA 4.0

Theatre Royal Haymarket: Nash's Portico

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rept0n1x, CC BY-SA 3.0. The original building sat slightly to the north. The current one - the white stone portico that still faces Haymarket today - was raised in 1821 to designs by John Nash, the Prince Regent's favorite architect, the man who shaped Regent Street and Regent's Park. Nash gave the Haym...

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Image: Rept0n1x | CC BY-SA 3.0

Theatre Royal Haymarket: Wilde Premieres and a Dark Connection

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Matthias Nonnenmacher, CC BY-SA 4.0. Under the actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree in the 1890s, the Haymarket became the house where Oscar Wilde tested his comedies on the world. A Woman of No Importance had its premiere here in April 1893; An Ideal Husband followed in January 1895. Tree's 1895 production of George...

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Image: Matthias Nonnenmacher | CC BY-SA 4.0

Theatre Royal Haymarket: The Ghost Light

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Colin Smith, CC BY-SA 2.0. Buckstone managed the theatre from 1853 to 1878, and audiences adored him. He died in 1879, and the sightings began almost immediately. The pattern is consistent: he prefers comedies, appears in the dress circle or the wings, watches contentedly, and vanishes. Margaret Rutherford...

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Image: Colin Smith | CC BY-SA 2.0