Page 38 - MISER

LONG RUNS
The ‘long run’ as a measure of a play’s success is a comparatively modern development. The first production to achieve 500 consecutive performances was the comedy Our Boys by H J Byron, a now forgotten but prolific Victorian dramatist who wrote numerous comedies, burlesques and pantomimes. It opened at the Vaudeville in 1875 and eventually played more than 1,362 performances. This was such
a novelty that London bus conductors reputedly shouted ‘Our Boys’ as they approached the Vaudeville Theatre stop.
The Vaudeville has been lucky enough to host many long-running productions.
Famous Edwardian actor Seymour Hicks and his wife Ellaline Terriss starred in Quality Street, a comedy by J M Barrie, opening
in 1902 and running for 459 performances. Hicks also co-wrote and scored an even bigger hit in 1904 with The Catch of the Season, based on the Cinderella story, which ran for 621 performances. William Douglas Home’s 1947
comedy The Chiltern Hundreds achieved 651 performances. It was revived here in 1999 starring Edward Fox. In 1954, Salad Days by Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds transferred here from the Bristol Old Vic and went on to achieve a milestone in the history of long runs, amassing well over 2,000 performances.
It was revived here in 2004, in
a production by Ned Sherrin, but did not fare so well. Leslie Phillips appeared in the comedy The Man Most Likely to... which ran for
two years from July 1968 and transferred to the Duke of York’s Theatre. In the 21st century, the enormously successful Stomp ran from 2002 to 2007.
THE FIRST THEATRICAL KNIGHT
Henry Irving was the first actor to be awarded a knighthood and he achieved his first significant success at the Vaudeville in 1870 in James Albery’s comedy Two Roses, which ran for 300 performances – an unusually long run for the time.
FIVE ILLUSTRIOUS OWNERS
Part of the Vaudeville’s success lies in the fact that it has had only five owners since 1892. That year restaurateur brothers Agostino and Stephano Gatti acquired the lease. They already owned the Adelphi a little further down the Strand and reputedly bought the Vaudeville to avoid a legal wrangle with the owner Thomas Thorne over the noise made by an electric generating station that they had developed in Maiden Lane. The family continued to run the theatre for over 70 years. In 1969 they sold their interest to Sir Peter Saunders, producer of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap. He handed the theatre on to Michael Codron, the leading producer
of post-war British theatre.
Sir Stephen Waley-Cohen bought the theatre in 1996 and in 2005 the Vaudeville became part of the Nimax Theatres portfolio under the expert guidance of award- winning American producer Max Weitzenhoffer and his UK producing partner Nica Burns.