Early years The theatre was constructed on the site of the
Six Cans and Punch Bowl Tavern. Edward Weston, nephew of the previous licensee of the pub, bought the former
Holborn National Schoolrooms immediately behind the pub and rebuilt it as a music hall in six months. This purpose built hall was his response to the success of
Charles Morton's
Canterbury Music Hall in
Lambeth. In 1861, Morton struck back by opening the
Oxford Music Hall, nearby in
Oxford Street; a development Weston opposed on the grounds there were already too many music halls in the area. The theatre was renamed the
Royal Music Hall in 1868, and then changed names again in 1892 under the management of Arthur Swanborough (Smith) (1838-1895) and George Burgess (1843-1908), becoming the
Royal Holborn Theatre of Varieties. So successful was it in that decade it began to rival Morton's
Canterbury Theatre, which was the most popular and profitable in London. The hall's early and most influential years were presided over by an exacting chairman and master of ceremonies, W. B. Fair, famous for the song
Tommy, Make Room for Your Uncle. The theatre became moribund at the beginning of the 20th century, but was rescued by George Cray, with sketches such as
The Fighting Parson.
Holborn Empire In 1905 the theatre was bought by the variety impresario Walter Gibbons and in 1906 he had the theatre auditorium remodelled by
Frank Matcham at a cost of £30,000; the theatre was renamed the Holborn Empire. The Holborn Empire was the last surviving
variety theatre in the
West End, also performing special theatrical matinees. On 22 January 1907, a long brewing dispute between artists, stage hands and managers of the theatres came to a head at the Holborn Empire. The artists, musicians and stage hands went on strike. Strikes in other London and suburban halls followed, organised by the
Variety Artistes' Federation. The strike came to be known as the
Music Hall Wars, and was against the conditions imposed by the managers. These included sole rights to a star and the ability to include additional matinee performances in the schedule without pay, or notice. Eventually the managements were forced to give in, in the face of solidarity by major stars like
Marie Lloyd, and additional payments for matinee performances were introduced. The theatre premièred the first full-length feature film in 1914,
The World, the Flesh and the Devil, a 50-minute
melodrama filmed in
Kinemacolor. In 1926, comedians
Flanagan and Allen were booked by
Val Parnell for a début at the theatre, and
Margaret Lockwood made her first stage appearance at the age of 12, in 1928, as a fairy in ''
A Midsummer Night's Dream''. The Holborn Empire was where
Max Miller was taken on by impresario Tom Arnold in 1926, and also where he starred in the George Black revues
Haw Haw! (1939), followed by
Apple Sauce (1940) featuring
Florence Desmond, Jack Stanford and
Vera Lynn. The theatre was closed as a result of an unexploded time bomb near the stage door, during
the Blitz on the night of 11–12 May 1941, and the show transferred to the
London Palladium. The building was hit the following night by another bomb and too badly damaged to reopen. It was finally pulled down in 1960. ==References==