Adelphi Theatre
| 1806 Sans Pareil 1844 Adelphi 1858 New Adelphi 1901 Century Theatre 1930 Royal Adelphi |
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Adelphi Theatre in 2007
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| Address |
Strand London, WC2 United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 51°30′36″N 0°07′22″W / 51.510063°N 0.122900°W |
| Public transit |
 Charing Cross Charing Cross
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| Owner | Nederlander Organization / Really Useful Theatres |
| Designation | Grade II |
| Type | West End theatre |
| Capacity | 1,500 seated |
| Production | Kinky Boots |
| Construction | |
| Opened | 1806 |
| Rebuilt | 1840 Samuel Beazley (new facade) 1858 T.H. Wyatt and Stephen Salter 1901 Ernest Runtz 1930 Ernest Schaufelberg |
| Architect | John and Jane Scott |
| Website | |
| Official website at Really Useful Theatres Group | |
The Adelphi Theatre /əˈdɛlfi/ is a London West End theatre, located on the Strand in the City of Westminster. The present building is the fourth on the site. The theatre has specialised in comedy and musical theatre, and today it is a receiving house for a variety of productions, including many musicals. The theatre was Grade II listed for historical preservation on 1 December 1987.
It was founded in 1806 as the Sans Pareil ("Without Compare"), by merchant John Scott, and his daughter Jane (1770–1839). Jane was a British theatre manager, performer, and playwright. Together, they gathered a theatrical company and by 1809 the theatre was licensed for musical entertainments, pantomime, and burletta. She wrote more than fifty stage pieces in an array of genres: melodramas, pantomimes, farces, comic operettas, historical dramas, and adaptations, as well as translations. Jane Scott retired to Surrey in 1819, marrying John Davies Middleton (1790–1867).
On 18 October 1819, the theatre reopened under its present name, which was adopted from the Adelphi Buildings opposite.
In its early years, the theatre was known for melodrama, called Adelphi Screamers. Many stories by Charles Dickens were also adapted for the stage here, including John Baldwin Buckstone's The Christening, a comic burletta, which opened on 13 October 1834, based on the story The Bloomsbury Christening. This is notable for being thought the first Dickens adaption performed. This was the first of many of Dickens's early works adapted for the stage of the Adelphi, including The Pickwick Papers as William Leman Rede's The Peregrinations of Pickwick; or, Boz-i- a-na, a three-act burletta first performed on 3 April 1837, Frederick Henry Yates's production of Nicholas Nickleby; or, Doings at Do-The-Boys Hall in November and December 1838, and Edward Stirling's two-act burletta The Old Curiosity Shop; or, One Hour from Humphrey's Clock (November and December 1840, January 1841). The theatre itself, makes a cameo appearance in The Pickwick Papers
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