Regency Hot Spots: The Coburg Theatre

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COBURG 魚 魚 魚 盘 盘 ROYAL COBURG THEATRE The Coburg Theatre is situate in Waterloo Bridge road and was so named in compliment to Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg The performances are chiefly melo dramas farces and burlesques on the follies of the day The pre sent proprietor is Mr GB Davidge a man of enterpris ing genius and an active caterer for public amusement Terms of admission same as the Adelphi Doors open at half past five The performance commences at half past six Half price at half past eight Terms of Admission To the Boxes Half price 8 d 4 2 009 Pit Half price Gallery Half price 2 0 1 0 1 0 6 Kidd, W. (1832). Kidd’s new guide to the ‘lions’ of London; or, The stranger’s directory. United Kingdom: Kidd.

Now called The Old Vic, the Royal Coburg Theatre was established in 1818, renamed in 1833 as the Royal Victoria Theatre, and then rebuilt and reopened in 1871 as the Royal Victoria Palace.

But in the Regency, it was opened by James King and Daniel Dunn, former managers of the Surrey Theatre, and had the patronage of Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg.  It was a minor theatre and therefore prohibited from playing serious dramas, but nonetheless managed to bring Kean in for a Shakespeare series during the management of George Bolwell Davidge c. 1824.

Daniel Egerton and William Abbot purchased the theatre in 1833.
form Lancaster Place The Coburg was built with a due regard to the character of the population by which it was surrounded and was therefore designed for melo dramas and pantomimes and on the whole it has adhered pretty closely to its original purpose under a variety of lessees and managers Among the pieces performed on the opening night was Trial
by Battle or Heaven Defend the Right based decision by Kemp fight or single combat There on the memorable appeal made by the brothers followed it a grand Asiatic ballet and a new and of Mary Ashford against her murderer Abraham splendid harlequinade partly from Milton's Masque Thornton the applicants right to a trial by wager of Comus with new and extensive machinery of battle having been acknowledged by the Court mechanical changes tricks and metamorphoses of King's Bench only a month previously At the and the play bills concluded with the comfortable end of the first season the public were told by the assurance extra patroles are engaged for the proprietor that it was his intention to have all the bridge and roads leading to the theatre and par avenues roads to the theatre well lighted while ticular attention will be paid to the lighting of the the appointed additional patrols on the bridge road same But the fashionable audience did not and keeping them in their own pay will afford long continue and the street lamps the coster ample security to the patrons of the theatre The mongers lamps of the New Cut and the vigilance public were also informed that the theatre was of the metropolitan police soon rendered unneces financially successful though Tom Dibdin states sary the extra patroles or the manager's par that its opening was a lamentable circumstance ticular attention being paid to the lighting of the to both its owners and the lessee of the Surrey surrounding thoroughfares The old Vic for for that each speculation showed a loss of several many years enjoyed a very doubtful reputation thousands whilst one theatre in that neighbourhood It was the place of which Charles Mathews once might have reaped a large profit Be this how wrote The lower orders rush there in mobs and ever as it may it is worthy of record that amongst in shirt sleeves applaud frantically drink ginger those personages who have appeared on the boards beer munch apples crack nuts call the actors of the Coburg are to be reckoned Edmund Kean by their Christian names and throw them orange who received 100 for performing here two nights peel and apples by way of bouquets For many in 1830 Booth TP Cooke Buckstone Benjamin years it bore a terribly bad character for fatal Webster Liston Joe Grimaldi and GV Brooke accidents from crushing and a false alarm of fire the Hibernian Roscius In July 1833 with here caused the deaths of some fifteen or sixteen a keen foresight of the future successor to the persons in December 1858 In a few years more Crown the name of the Coburg was changed to however a change came and on the night of the that of the Victoria in compliment to the young 9th of September 1871 a crowded audience beheld princess who then stood as heir presumptive to the the last of the old Victoria It could be seen at throne and the whole of the interior was altered a glance observes a writer in the Daily News and embellished afresh In the June of the fol that the evening was one to be held in special lowing year the great violinist Paganini performed here for a single night his last public appearance in this country A special feature of this theatre for some years was its act drop which was neither more nor less than a huge looking glass It was lifted up bodily into the roof where a large box shaped contrivance was fitted up to receive it Notwithstanding that the old Vic for so this theatre was popularly called has in former times numbered among its scene painters such men as Clarkson Stanfield the great marine painter the place does not appear to have been a very fortunate speculation for its managers or lessees several being ruined by it When this theatre first opened its doors up wards of half a century ago it was in the presence of a large and fashionable audience if we may believe the newspapers of the day The piece performed on that occasion which we have men tioned above entitled Trial by Battle or Heaven Defend the Right was described in the play bills as an entirely new melo dramatic spectacle in which was to be portrayed the ancient mode of A fashion by the humble dwellers in the New Cut A cherished institution dear to them and their children was doomed and they had come to take a last fond look and earn the right of narrating by the winter fire how they had seen the Vic proud in its glory and triumphant in its expiring moments The increase of prices to the extent of threepence in every part of the house had no effect upon the gallery or the pit so that the precautions taken by the management to open the doors at half past five were quite necessary very laudable desire was felt to do all that could be done that the Victoria Theatre might end its days in peace and pass to its rest with no fresh disaster on its conscience The audience over awed maybe by the thoughts which seized them assisted to secure this result There ascending from gallery front into the dim roof were the lusty roughs short sleeved slop clothed and cropped as of yore but no missiles came from their hands no internecine warfare was carried on to the mingled delight and terror of the beholders no oaths resounded from side to side no Bedlam was let loose as in the olden times when respectable West enders would not have dared to enter the house without an unquestioned life assurance The audience at the Vic has been made to answer the purpose of awful warning for many a long year and we will do that of the closing night the justice to say that composed undoubtedly as it was of persons living in the Lambeth highways and bye ways it was on the whole as decorous as that of any other house in the metropolis The few cat calls that some hardy and unfeeling youths at an early hour indulged in found no response whistling even was at a discount and the very children in arms stared wondrously at the drop scene and rubbed their sticky little knuckles into their sleepy little eyes The theatre on this occasion was roused into a faint semblance of its former self when the foreboding strains of the overture heralded in a Romantic Drama entitled the Trial by Battle the chief merit of which was as we have before stated that it commenced the entertainment when the theatre was first opened on the 11th of May 1818 It was not likely there could have been a single person present on the closing night who was also present when the curtain rose for the first time at the Coburg Theatre albeit there were several who had seen themselves reflected in the famous mirror curtain and who could remember the visit of the Princess Victoria and the house's subsequent change of name The
Thornbury, G. W., Walford, E. (1880). Old and new London: a narrative of its history, its people and its places, by W. Thornbury (E. Walford).. United Kingdom: (n.p.).

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