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Villiers Street

EngvarB from January 2014Streets in the City of Westminster
Villiers Street, London 05
Villiers Street, London 05

Villiers Street is a street in London connecting the Strand with the Embankment. It is partly pedestrianised; traffic runs northbound only up to John Adam Street, where vehicles must turn right. It was built by Nicholas Barbon in the 1670s on the site of York House, the property of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, whom the street commemorates. A watergate in nearby Embankment Gardens is the only remnant of the mansion and shows the original position of the north bank of the River Thames.John Evelyn lived here in the 17th century and the Irish writer Richard Steele, who founded The Spectator and The Tatler magazines, lodged here from 1712. The Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, now a part of the Imperial College Faculty of Medicine, was founded here in 1834. Prior to 1865, Villiers Street ran down the hill directly to a wharf by the river, known as Villiers Wharf. This was swept away in 1865 by the construction of the Victoria Embankment, with its sewers, and the District line railway. The river was moved back some 50 metres (164 ft) from the foot of Villiers Street.

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Villiers Street
Northumberland Street, City of Westminster Covent Garden

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N 51.508 ° E -0.1238 °
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Charing Cross Railway Station

Northumberland Street
WC2N 5DA City of Westminster, Covent Garden
England, United Kingdom
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Villiers Street, London 05
Villiers Street, London 05
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Players' Theatre

The Players' Theatre was a London theatre which opened at 43 King Street, Covent Garden, on 18 October 1936. The club originally mounted period-style musical comedies, introducing Victorian-style music hall in December 1937. The threat of World War II German bombing prompted a move in October 1940 to a basement at 13 Albemarle Street, Piccadilly and then after the cessation of hostilities, to Villiers Street, Charing Cross, opening on 14 February 1946.Other intermediate locations of the theatre include the Arts Theatre and the St John's Wood private residence of a member, Francis Iles (Anthony Berkeley). Overwhelmed by debt, the theatre closed in 2002, although the Players' Theatre Club continues to perform music hall shows in other venues.Appearing at the Players' Theatre were Leonard Sachs (who was often the chairman), Patricia Hayes, Hattie Jacques, James Robertson Justice, Peter Ustinov, Clive Dunn, Ian Carmichael, Joan Sterndale-Bennett, Vida Hope, and Denis Martin, who eventually became Director of Production.In 1967 the music label Decca Records issued an LP A Night of Music Hall from The Players' Theatre, (London's Victorian Theatre) with 19 songs and duets encompassing a typical evening at the Players, chaired by Don Gemell. The recorded artists were Stella Moray, Maurice Browning, Margaret Burton, Patsy Rowlands, Hattie Jacques, John Rutland, Joan Sterndale Bennett, Josephine Gordon, Robin Hunter, Daphne Anderson, Clive Dunn and Bill Owen, with Peter Greenwell and Geoffrey Brawn (piano). At the time of the recording the membership of the theatre club was over 5,000.The name of the nightly show was Late Joys which derived from a hotel on the site of the building at 43 King Street: "Evans – Late Joy's", Joy having been the owner of the song and supper room before a comedian from Covent Garden, Evans, took over.Following the closure of the Players' Theatre in 2002, the Players' Theatre Club continues to perform music hall shows throughout the year in other venues such as the Museum of Comedy, the Royal Oak pub in Tabard Street and the Royal Air Force Club in Piccadilly.

Watergate Theatre, London

The Watergate Theatre in London existed in 1949-56, located on Buckingham Street, Westminster. In 1949 Elizabeth Denby, together with the theatre director and playwright Velona Pilcher, the writer Elizabeth Sprigge, and Jane Drew converted a site at 29 Buckingham Gate, originally a Chinese restaurant destroyed in World War II during the Blitz, to create a performing space for their theatre club. This consisted of two club rooms, and a 70-seat theatre. In 1950 plans were made to increase the seating to 100, and for the walls to display murals designed by Marc Chagall. In 1950 Chagall started work on two studies for the projected murals – 'The Dance and the Circus' and 'The Blue Circus'. After Pilcher's death in 1952, Chagall gave his murals to the Tate Gallery, and the theatre was taken over by the New Watergate Theatre Club.In September 1950 it staged the premiere of George Bernard Shaw's Farfetched Fables, the last work Shaw completed, and it also staged the English premiere of August Strindberg's The Great Highway, in a translation by Sprigge. That year also saw the staging and almost runaway success of Pablo Picasso's short play, Desire caught by the Tail in the translation by Roland Penrose. In 1951 it presented a production of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors performed by the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club and directed by John Barton.Several revues were staged at the Watergate Theatre, including Sandy Wilson's See You Later (1951) featuring Dulcie Gray and with Donald Swann playing the piano, and John Cranko's Cranks (1955, featuring Anthony Newley and with music by John Addison) and setting by John Piper.Given notice that 29 Buckingham Gate was due to be demolished as part of the Strand Improvement Scheme, the New Watergate moved to the Comedy Theatre in Panton Street in 1956.

Charing Cross tube station
Charing Cross tube station

Charing Cross (sometimes informally abbreviated as Charing +, Charing X, CHX or CH+) is a London Underground station at Charing Cross in the City of Westminster. The station is served by the Bakerloo and Northern lines and provides an interchange with Charing Cross mainline station. On the Bakerloo line it is between Embankment and Piccadilly Circus stations and on the Northern line it is between Embankment and Leicester Square stations. The station is in fare zone 1. Charing Cross was originally two separate stations, known for most of their existence as Trafalgar Square and Strand. The Bakerloo line platforms were opened by the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway in 1906 and the Northern line platforms by the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway in 1907. In the 1970s, in preparation for the opening of the Jubilee line, the two earlier stations were connected together with new below ground passageways. When the Jubilee line platforms opened in 1979, the combined station was given the current name. Jubilee line services ended in 1999 when the line was extended to Stratford. The station has entrances in Trafalgar Square, Strand, Villiers Street, Adelaide Street, William IV Street and in the mainline station. It is close to the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, Admiralty Arch, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Canada House, South Africa House, the Savoy Hotel, The Mall, Northumberland Avenue and Whitehall.

Toole's Theatre
Toole's Theatre

Toole's Theatre, was a 19th-century West End building in William IV Street, near Charing Cross, in the City of Westminster. A succession of auditoria had occupied the site since 1832, serving a variety of functions, including religious and leisure activities. The theatre at its largest, after reconstruction in 1881–82, had a capacity of between 650 and 700. As the Charing Cross Theatre (1869–1876) the house became known for bills offering a mixture of drama, burlesque and operetta. Among the authors of its burlesques were W. S. Gilbert and H. B. Farnie. Its stars included Lydia Thompson, Lionel Brough and Willie Edouin. In 1876 Thompson and her husband, Alexander Henderson, became lessees of the theatre and renamed it the Folly Theatre. They continued the theatre's customary mix of operetta and burlesque. Their greatest successes were with English adaptations of French opéras bouffes and opéras comiques, most conspicuously Les cloches de Corneville, which began its record-breaking run (705 performances) at the Folly in 1878. In 1879 the comic actor J. L. Toole took over the lease. In 1881 he changed the name to Toole's Theatre and had the building substantially reconstructed. He continued the policy of staging burlesques, but introduced more non-musical comedies and farces. Among the authors who wrote for the theatre were John Maddison Morton, F. C. Burnand and Henry Pottinger Stephens; composers included George Grossmith and Edward Solomon. The theatre was important for beginning the professional careers of many actors, writers and actor-managers. Among the playwrights whose early works were presented at Toole's were Arthur Wing Pinero and J. M. Barrie. Future stars who were members of the company as beginners included Kate Cutler, Florence Farr, Seymour Hicks, Irene and Violet Vanbrugh and Lewis Waller. The lease of the theatre expired in 1895, and the lessor, the Charing Cross Hospital, did not renew it. The theatre was demolished in 1896.