Following Holly Scott's very successful talk on The Mayflower Theatre, we are provisionally planninhg a tour / visit to The Mayflower Theatre in Spring 2025 for our members.
More details to follow later
PLEASE NOTE; The date of 1st April will NOT be the date of the visit. It has only been used as the website requires a date for every event.
Talk ‘The History of Mayflower Theatre’ by Holly Scott. 25 September 2023
Holly Scott leads on the Mayflower Theatre’s heritage programme, which includes delivering historical and backstage theatre tours as well as working with volunteers to organise the theatre’s archive.
Holly’s Talk
The ‘Mayflower’ originally called the ‘Empire Theatre’ was part of the Moss Empire theatre group and opened with the Rudolf Friml show ‘Winona’ with a cast of over 100 on 22 December 1928. Friml is better known for the show ‘Rose Marie’.
In 1933 the arrival of cinema led to the installation of a projector and a screen which could be raised and lowered at the front of the stage.
In 1950 the theatre became part of the Rank Organisation and was re-named as the ‘Gaumont Theatre’ hosting concerts by many famous rock and roll bands, including Bill Hayley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and Cat Stevens while continuing to act as a cinema between concerts. Programmes continued until the end of the 1980s, when performances began to require larger concert halls and arenas for their shows.
In 1982, the Rank Organisation submitted a ‘Change of Use’ planning application to the City Council to convert the building into a Dance Hall or Ten Pin Bowling Alley or for Bingo. This was refused. The City Council instead offered to buy the building and did so for £650,000 and the £3 million cost of refurbishment. This led to the setting up of a charitable trust and a lease with a peppercorn rent. In the meanwhile1983 saw the building awarded grade II listed status.
The theatre closed for the work in January 1986, and re-opened as ‘The Mayflower’ [following a public re-naming competition] on 24 February 1987, with a production of ‘Peter Pan’ starring Bonnie Langford.
Musicals made up a big part of the turnaround of the theatre. 1990 brought a full-scale version of ‘42nd Street’ followed by ‘Evita’ These proved huge successes and along with the pantomimes, ensured the continued success of the theatre, 1994's ‘Dick Whittington’, starring Lesley Joseph and John Nettles attracted 126,256 theatregoers, a record.
‘Cats’ also arrived in 1994, bringing an audience of 125,000. This was followed by many other shows, including ‘The Phantom of the Opera’
In 2003, the theatre closed for refurbishment again, the main purpose being the change from a raked to a flat stage for the benefit of dance. The theatre reopened, with the large-scale production of ‘Miss Saigon’.
In 2009 there was a major change to the backstage areas, including a new scenery dock, at the same time the stalls and the circle bar were refurbished.
After a 4-week run of ‘War Horse’ in September 2018 all of the seats in the stalls and circle were replaced by 1,659 brand-new wider ones and the auditorium was redecorated in its new and current royal red and gold colour scheme.
Holly’s enthusiasm for the theatre’s history shone through to engage with her audience some of whom had worked in front-of-house and behind-the-scenes, so leading to a spirited question and answer session to close the meeting.