Gielgud Theatre

The Gielgud Theatre was originally built in honour of the multi-talented man Seymour Hicks. Hicks was a playwright, a theatre manager and an actor. In the first days of this theatre, a number of Hicks’ musicals were performed here. He even stood in for his wife once, when due to illness she could not play her title role in The Dashing Little Duke. Somehow Hicks managed to pull off playing the part – as the role was a woman playing a man! The theatre has had many successful runs in productions, once holding the record for the longest running play with Terence Fishby’s There’s a Girl in My Soup. It was only outdone by Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Oliver. The Gieglud Theatre has also been home to a cat named Beerbohm, who lived to be 20 and died in 1995. Beerbohm is the only cat ever to receive a front page obituary in the theatrical publication, The Stage