Plymouthhistory

Mr J. R. Newcombe from Bath made a bid for the management of the ailing Theatre Royal but
season after season passed without profit, the dress circle usually empty and the outbreak of
cholera in Plymouth did his business no favours. Mr Newcombe never lost heart and the
audiences that turned up saw some of the best performers in the country, local stories being
warmly received, most noteworthy being The Five Fields Tragedy, or the Assassin's Bridge : A
Tale of Stoke, in 1787. He even staged the famous Drake and the bowling green scene in a play
about the Spanish Armada.
His tenure would be marked by tragedy. During a local amateur performance, the auditorium was
filled to overflowing when the performers entered the stage. Mrs Kirby as a Country Belle came
downstage towards the footlights wearing a light muslin dress and was instantly enveloped in
flames. For a moment, everyone was paralysed with horror then several men rushed to her rescue
with coats and rugs. The hysterical spectators dispersed to the news that the poor Mrs Kirby was
horribly injured. She did not survive.
During the pantomime season of 1863, shortly after the house had emptied, Mr Newcombe
noticed a suspicious smell and scoured the theatre. He saw nothing to alarm him and went to bed,
where still worried he rose within the hour and returned to find the Theatre Royal in flames. The
props room was ablaze and the firefighters made a hole in the roof so the water could reach the
fire, but this seemed only to spread it further. The firemen were forced to retreat and the rafters
shook and came crashing down. The country was illuminated by the flames for miles. Thousands
were evacuated from their homes as the Citadel’s guns fired in warning. The conflagration
enveloped the western part of the building and engineers saved the rest by hacking at the roof
with hatchets. The ballroom floor collapsed into the tearoom below with such force that the floor
sank several inches.
In June 1878, fire struck again. The play had just finished when the acting manager, another Mr
Newcombe, saw smoke issuing from the upper windows. In a couple of hours, the theatre was
gutted again and nothing remained but bare walls. It finally reopened in January 1879.
The Palace of Varieties
In 1898, an elegant Theatre of Varieties was built on Union Street
replacing a noisy marketplace that was called “The Fancy Fair”. Designed
by Mr W.H. Arber of London, with tiled panel reproductions of Sir Oswald
Brierly’s famous Armada paintings, the new theatre was named “The
Palace”. A handsome Sicilian marble staircase led to the balcony and
foyers and the stalls were reached through an avenue of mirrors. In the
proscenium over the stage, a huge Union Jack was displayed along with a
fresco of the knighting of Drake, and the dome and balcony were filled
with paintings of naval and military triumphs. Along with the building of the
Western Hotel next door, the total cost was £185,000.
Over the years, the Palace would attract the great names of variety including Charlie Chaplin,
Gracie Fields, Lilly Langtry, Anna Pavlova, Harry Houdini, George Formby, Louis Armstrong, Old
Mother Riley and Tommy Handley of ‘It’s That Man Again’. Laurel and Hardy were to perform there
in 1954, but Stan Laurel had a minor heart attack following a bout of flu and they sadly had to pull
out. Their faces however still decorate the interior. Shows continued throughout the Plymouth Blitz,
despite the theatre being hit with incendiary bombs.
Variety performers had previously used St. James's Hall in Union Street which had been
built in 1866 by Mr Henry Reed, musical director at the Theatre Royal and Mr J R
Newcombe’s son-in-law. In 1872 the famous Barnum circus star General Tom Thumb
appeared there. In 1898 the Hall was closed to prevent competition with the new theatre
and performers were transferred to The Palace.
Having lost the lease to his father-in-law’s Theatre Royal, Henry Reed then constructed
the Grand Theatre in Union Street but it could not compete with the existing theatres and
the owner of The Palace easily induced Mr Reed to sell The Grand Theatre for £17,000.
The Grand became a very popular film theatre until it was destroyed in the Plymouth Blitz
Tom Thumb
of March 1941.