Charing Cross Music Hall
| 1867 The Arches 1883 Hungerford Music Hall 1887 Gatti's under the Arches 1887 Gatti's Charing Cross Music Hall 1910-1923 Arena Cinema 1928-1939 Forum Cinema 1939-1945 fire station 1946 Players' Theatre |
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| Address |
Villiers Street Westminster, London |
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| Coordinates | 51°30′27″N 0°07′23″W / 51.5075°N 0.1231°W |
| Owner | Gatti family |
| Capacity | 400 seated and standing 300 seated in 1945 270 seated in 2005 |
| Current use | Theatre and conference centre |
| Production | Visiting productions |
| Years active | 1867 - 1910 Music hall 1946 - 2002 Music hall 2002 - Studio theatre |
| Website | |
| www.newplayerstheatre.com | |
The Charing Cross Music Hall was established beneath the arches of Charing Cross railway station in 1866 by brothers Giovanni and Carlo Gatti to replace the former Hungerford Hall. The site had been acquired, together with Hungerford Market, by the South Eastern Railway in 1862, and incorporated into the railway station, which opened on 11 January 1864, resulting in the demolition of the hall.
The music hall was built in the substantial two-level space formed by two of the arches of the undercroft of the station, and opened in 1867 as The Arches, renamed the Hungerford Music Hall in 1883, and in 1887 became known variously as the Charing Cross Music Hall, Gatti's under the Arches and Gatti's Charing Cross Music Hall. By 1895, the hall boasted an attached grand cafe and billiard saloon.
As a young man, Rudyard Kipling lived in Villiers Street, and visited Gatti's, and wrote My One and Only, for a Lion Comique at the hall. His experiences in the hall formed the basis for his Barrack-Room Ballads. Kipling also wrote a story called My Great and Only (1890) describing a visit he made to Gatti's. He wrote that the hall held four hundred “when it’s all full, sir”. A weekly periodical for artistes, The Music Hall and Theatre, provides a review on 23 November 1889 of a variety performance:
Twixt Love and Duty, Leo Dryden has his hands full, to say nothing of his voice, which is equally full . . . Charles Ross, of Gaiety fame, so well known as the Dainty Champion, secures rounds of applause by the rendering of his new characteristic song entitled She’s a real good mother . . . James Fawn wants to know who cuts the policemen out? Why the soldier whom Fawn impersonated to the very life. He does like to be in the know, you know, equally so with his hearers, who would willingly sit out a whole night with him if he’d keep them in the know all the time, but James must draw the line somewhere, so he draws it at Gatti’s.
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Wikipedia