Theatre Royal Margate Archive

Welcome

2207-04-11T00:54:00.004+01:00

Photo by Max Mosscrop

Photo by David Rankin

Originally posted April 2007 About ten years ago I became involved as a volunteer with the Theatre Royal Margate. I loved the place so much that, when I was made redundant from my previous retail furnishing management job, I started to spend more and more time there. Within a year of losing one job, I had a new one as Marketing Manager of the Theatre Royal, for over five years it's been the best job I've ever had!

But as you may know, at the end of March 2007, the Theatre Royal was purchased by Thanet District Council, one of the conditions of the sale was that all the staff were to be made redundant (five full time plus assorted casuals and volunteers) as it would be closing for six months and changing it's programming to more community based product.

As of today(April 11th, coincidently my 55th birthday) , I have left the theatre but the theatre has not left me, so I plan over the next few months/years to use this site as a celebration of this amazing building. I will be using some of the personal archive that I have collected, purchased or researched in my own time, to help preerve the long and glorious history of one of the oldest theatres in the country.

But let's start at the end of the current chapter in it's multi faceted life. Below are a few pictures of some of the staff and volunteers after the final public performance at 'their' Theatre Royal on Easter Monday April 9th 2007.

This site is dedicated to all those who gave their time and enthusiasm to try to make a dream work, let's hope it wasn't in vain!

Theatre Royal Margate through the Ages - exterior

2011-06-04T17:25:00.000+01:00

I have many pictures of the Theatre Royal through the ages, some of them alternate versions of the same image but sometimes subtly different, here are a selection of them. Dates are either as established on the picture or the original source... or my best guess!!

1787

1831

1903

1940's - taken from a leaflet offering the TRM for sale

1953

1957

1959

1962

1965

1966

1967ish

1988

1989

2001

2004 repaint

2005

Ghost Detectives tv show

2011-06-01T15:44:00.000+01:00

The full Ghost Detectives programme about the Theatre Royal Margate with Tom Baker. This version is taken from my original on-air video recording, although it is now available as part of a DVD set of the series.

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

part 5

part 6

The article below is from the TV listings magazine, plus the comp slip enclosed with the video of the off air version sent to us by the production company.

Videos

2011-05-31T04:36:00.004+01:00

I thought it would be worth adding some of my videos directly to the site. Copyright remains with the original tv companies/producers, I am merely adding them for historical interest as they show the theatre in action and close ups of parts of the building.

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Back in 1997 the Theatre Royal Margate had it's first Summer Show for many years - The Flanagan & Allen Story. Here is the tv report on the opening.

For Children in Need, BBC Radio Kent presenters put together a charity show at the Theatre Royal Margate. This is the BBC tv report on the show.

A Meridian tv report on ghosts at the Theatre Royal

An ITV kids programme 'It's A Mystery' from Sept 1996 dealing with unexplained phenomenons. This is the segment from the third show, with Sophie Aldred investigating the Theatre Royal Margate.

In 2003 a burst pipe high up backstage caused a flood which closed the TRM for over three months.
(hmmm this chap looks familiar!!)

Here's the tv report on the reopening after the flood in 2003

TV report of New Kent Opera at the Theatre Royal in 2004

A short promo piece to promote the Theatre Royal Margate for sponsors and businesses.It has some nice closeup views of the theatre.

TRM sale to Thanet District Council report 1
(watch for early footage of the TRM and offices from around 1965)

TRM sale to Thanet District Council report 2
(I'm still looking for confirmation/evidence of Charlie Chaplin's appearance at TRM)

More to follow soon.

Ghosts at the Theatre Royal

2007-09-30T23:12:00.002+01:00

Whilst going through some old files recently, I found this report on the ghosts at the Theatre Royal which was originally published in 'Phantoms Of The Theatre' by Raymond Lamont Brown (Satellite Books, London 1978)

A Multi-haunted Theatre

The Theatre Royal, Addington Street, Margate, Kent, is perhaps southern England's most haunted theatre. Opened originally in 1787, heir to over 200 years of tradition and holding slightly under two thousand patrons, this theatre. has been associated with many famous actors. Its most famous manager was Miss Sarah J Thorne, who guided its fortunes until 1894. Something of a martinet, Sarah Thorne made her theatre celebrated in the south of England, but from around 1894, the playhouse began to decline. Over the years it suffered a number of vicissitudes and was turned into a furniture store. It was reopened as a theatre in 1930 and subsequently it has been in turn a cinema, a theatre, and a bingo hall.

Fred Archer was probably the first to make a national story about the hauntings at the Theatre Royal, Margate. According to the local papers a progressive series of hauntings began in 1918, when the ghost of Sarah Thorne was first seen. Miss Thorne, incidentally, is believed to have come back to protest at the modern usage of the theatre, such as bingo and other gambling games. So frightening was her wraith to some witnesses that the police were called in to investigate, but they found nothing untoward.

Archer says that the theatre "where there is a trapdoor leading to what was a smuggler's cave" probably boasts the most diverse psychic happenings in. the theatrical world: "an orange-coloured ball of light"; "a scream which starts backstage and seems to travel across the stage and finally exits through the stagedoor" ; and "the appearance of a ghost in one of the boxes who draws back the curtains if they are closed."

The latter phenomenon was witnessed by Macqueen Pope, who believed this spectre to be an actor who had committed suicide by throwing himself from the box into the orchestra pit sometime in the early 1900's. Joseph Braddock dates the suicide to late Georgian or early Victorian times:
An actor from a company playing at the theatre was dismissed for some reason, and on the next evening he bought himself a box for the performance. During the course of the play he committed suicide by throwing himself out of the box into the orchestra pit. Some time during the first decade of our century the wraith of a man was seen sitting in the box so often that the management was obliged to withdraw the box from sale, leaving it permanently curtained, until finally it was bricked up.

This, however, would predate the building of the Theatre Royal on the Addington Street site. Alternatively, the story as Braddock heard it could have referred to the eighteenth-century site of Margate's theatre tradition, and was perhaps a transference of the myth.

Modern testimony of the theatre's hauntings comes from Alfred Charles Tanner, who was interviewed about his sightings in 1966 by Dr. A. R. G. Owen, the distinguished Cambridge parapsychologist, and Victor Sims.

Tanner, it appears, was working during January 1966 on the redecoration of the Theatre Royal when he encountered the ghostly happenings. In order that the redecoration should not interrupt the daytime bingo, Tanner had agreed to work through the night. His first night's work passed without incident dent, but during his second work stint he heard a series of sounds coming from the stage - as if someone were whispering. He stopped work for a few minutes to investigate, but could find no reason for the noises. Working on, he heard the natural creakings of the floorboards. Then, however, he heard the sounds of footsteps just in front of the stage and moving toward him.

As he turned around to see who was there, the footsteps stopped. No one was to be seen. Suddenly, testifies Tanner, he heard the door of the box office bang violently. Again no one was to be seen. The decorator was entirely alone in the old theatre Tanner resumed painting in the hope that the unusual noises he had heard were "natural." Just as he was getting himself calm again, the phantom footsteps started once more. They came up behind him and halted when he turned. But this time there was something more eerie. Tanner heard an extremely heavy thump on the floor between the front row of seats and the stage-as though a heavy object had fallen there. Charles Tanner looked across at the spot: "I swear I saw the dust rising, just as it would if a real object had hit the carpet." Of course no object was visible, but could this have been the materialised impact of the ghostly suicide's cadaver hitting the floor?

On the following night, Tanner was at work again when he was interrupted once more. This time he saw "a semi-transparent globular object measuring about ten inches across" moving across the stage from left to right. The globe latterly formed the shape of a head before it disappeared. This time Tanner saw curtains by the exit door being moved by an unseen hand.

The next working night Charles Tanner, who now had an assistant, Lawrence Rodgers, was haunted again. Both heard a curious bang from the dress circle. This time the police were called, but no intruders were found.

Certain aspects of these hauntings - the slow movement of the curtains and the bangs and footfalls are typical of poltergeists, as set down by parapsychologists A. R. G. Owen and Raymond Bayliss. But the "face" remains more of an unaccounted mystery.

Following the theories of G. W. Lambert, some persons have said that the "ghostly noises" had something to do with seismic disturbances. But can earthquakes cause localisation of phenomena in the theatre at Margate? Can it localise noises to one position only within a building? Hardly.

Certainly the ghosts at the Theatre Royal, Margate, are best explained as poltergeists, with hallucination as a side effect in the case of the curtains and the "face"- almost as a form of mediumistic talent in terror. Above all the "atmosphere" of this theatre seems to be the most charged in Britain for psychic happenings.

It's also worthwhile taking a look at some of the videos I've added to my You Tube page of some of the tv reports on the same subject. Here's a sample from an ITV kids programme 'It's A Mystery' from Sept 1996 dealing with unexplained phenomenons. This is the segment from the third show, with Sophie Aldred investigating the Theatre Royal Margate. Just use the link on the right to see others in my collection.

Sarah Thorne

2007-09-26T23:21:00.002+01:00

The Theatre Royal Margate reopened it's doors after the closedown when it was purchased by Thanet Council on 29th September 2007, coincidently on the same night as our new operation, the Sarah Thorne Theatre Club began at the Memorial Theatre, Hilderstone, Broadstairs, run by some of the Royal's old staff. I can honestly say it was not planned, the STTC announced their opening date way back in June, well before the Theatre Royal's new management was in place.

To celebrate the fact that both these ventures have Sarah Thorne in common, as either manager, mentor or inspiration, I thought it would be good to add a short biography on the history of this great lady by C. M. P. Taylor.

I have also put a link to this entry on the STTC site to complete the circle between staff and venues, both old and new, good luck to them all. David

Sarah Thorne,(1836–1899)

Sarah Thorne, actress and theatre manager, was born in London on 10 May 1836, the eldest of the ten children of Richard Samuel Thorne (d. 1875), an actor and theatre manager, and his wife, Sarah, née Rogers (c.1813–1896). A member of a family connected extensively for several generations with the stage, Sarah Thorne was to become a talented and versatile actress and an able theatre manager. Her stage début was on 26 December 1848 in a pantomime put on by her father at the Pavilion Theatre, Whitechapel. After further appearances there, as Little Pickles in The Spoiled Child and in E. G. Burton's blank-verse play The Warrior Boy, for which she practised broad-sword combat, she played in minor roles at the Surrey Theatre in the spring of 1854 under Richard Shepherd and William Creswick. In the next years she performed in stock companies at Ryde, Sunderland, Newcastle upon Tyne, Sheffield, Hanley, and the Britannia Theatre, Hoxton. She also joined her father for the summer seasons at Margate (which he had taken in 1855); playing opposite some of the leading actors of the day, she contributed to the growing status of that theatre. She first appeared there on 6 August 1855, shortly after Thorne's opening on 28 July. In time, most of her seven brothers and three sisters also performed at Margate.

For three seasons in the late 1850s Sarah Thorne was the leading lady at the Theatre Royal, Dublin, where, inter alia, she played Desdemona to Charles Kean's Othello and Lady Macbeth opposite Gustavus Vaughan Brooke. There followed starring tours in Ireland and Scotland. Some time between 1856 and 1859 she was married in Ireland to Thomas Macknight (1829–1899), already the author of an anonymous book attacking Disraeli, who later became editor of the Northern Whig. The couple had two children, Edmund (b. 1860) and Elizabeth (b. 1862), who married the actor–manager Henry Dundas (Arthur Harrison) in 1883. However, Sarah Thorne's commitment to the stage and Macknight's interests in politics and philosophy proved incompatible, and after only a short period they lived separately. In August 1863 she starred at Brighton and in 1865 she appeared, again in leading roles, including that of the eponymous Leah, at Paisley Theatre Royal, the Prince of Wales's Opera House, Edinburgh, and the New Theatre Royal, Jersey. Between October 1865 and March 1866 she played at the National Standard Theatre, Shoreditch, taking principal parts in a lengthy season of Shakespeare's plays.

Sarah Thorne's first experience of management came in 1867, when she succeeded her father as lessee of the Theatre Royal, Margate; she opened on 29 July with H. T. Craven's Meg's Diversions and The Child of the Regiment. Her declared policy was to offer the ‘newest pieces approved in the metropolis as occasion permits’ but never to neglect ‘old and legitimate productions’ (Era, 4 Aug 1867). Her lease ended when the theatre was sold at auction in August 1873 to Robert Fort, and for the 1874 stock season she held a lesser management role. She returned briefly to Margate at Christmas 1874 during the tour of her now established annual pantomime.

Thorne's second period of management was at the recently rebuilt Theatre Royal, Worcester, where she opened on 27 March 1876. There she engaged touring productions and provided, as at Margate, a stock company with a repertory of both classical and contemporary drama. Her association with Worcester came to an abrupt end when the theatre burnt down on 24 November 1877. She then formed a touring company to support the ageing Charles James Mathews.

The withdrawal of Fort's latest tenant enabled Thorne to resume a lease at Margate in January 1879. Committed to the rapidly disappearing stock-company system, she maintained an annual summer season. For the remainder of the year she opened the theatre to some of the burgeoning touring companies, among them that of her brother Tom Thorne (1841–1918), who brought productions he had first put on at the Vaudeville Theatre, London (where he was manager from 1870). For a brief period in the autumn of 1879 she also leased Astley's Amphitheatre, London, where she appeared with her youngest brother, George Tyrrell Thorne (1856–1922), who had been apprenticed to her, in Boucicault's The Flying Scud. George was later a leading member of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.

Sarah Thorne gained a substantial reputation for training young players. In 1885 she opened her School of Acting, advertising for ‘Ladies and Gentlemen’ wishing to enter the theatrical profession and charging £20 for three months' or £30 for six months' training. The regime, in which she was assisted on occasions by her sister Emily (Mrs Frank Parker Gillmore, d. 1907), included classes in ‘voice production, gesture and mime, dialects and accents, make-up, the portrayal of characters, the value of pace and the value of pauses’ (Morley, 110). Among her pupils were Harley Granville Barker, Helen Brinckman, Sarah Brooke, Louis Calvert, Gertrude Kingston, Beatrice Lamb, Evelyn Millard, her niece Nellie Thorne, Irene and Violet Vanbrugh, and Florence Ward. While it was customary for actor–managers to take apprentices, this school is regarded as the country's first formal drama school. In 1894 she leased the Chatham Lecture Hall, which she renamed the Opera House and used as a second venue for her stock company.

Although she was acclaimed in a wide range of parts and genres, Sarah Thorne's preferences were for Shakespeare's Beatrice, Desdemona, Juliet, and Lady Macbeth, Kate Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer, Lady Teazle in The School for Scandal, and Leah. She insisted on good taste in her choice of plays and in their production, avowedly rejecting ‘anything vulgar in costume or language’ (Chatham, Rochester and Brompton Observer). She is said to have had a ‘somewhat imperious manner’ (Thanet Times, 3 March 1899), but a Margate contemporary spoke of her generosity, especially to the poor and elderly, whose rent she would sometimes pay herself (Chatham Observer).

Sarah Thorne's last performance was in September 1898, at her benefit at Margate, when she took the part of Parthenia in Maria Lovell's Ingomar. Her last appearance on the Chatham stage had been in May 1896, as Lady Gay Spanker in London Assurance. She died at 3 New Road Avenue, Chatham, on 27 February 1899, just as what was to have been a celebration of her theatrical jubilee was being arranged by George Alexander and Gertrude Kingston for 16 March at St James's Theatre, London. She was buried at Brompton cemetery on 3 March 1899. After her death her son, who had been her business manager since the early 1880s, took over the leases of the Chatham and Margate theatres.

Happy 230th Birthday Theatre Royal

2007-06-27T00:03:00.001+01:00

On June 27th 1787, amid much ceremony, the Theatre Royal Margate opened it's doors for the first time. The first performances were "She Stoops to Conquer" and "All the Worlds a Stage". Below is part of the story leading up to the opening of Kent's oldest theatre.

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During the reign of King George III, Francis Cobb was a very influential Margate businessman; he was the landlord of the 'Fountain Inn', Kings Street, Margate as well as the head of Cobbs Brewery. Situated at the rear of the Fountain Inn was a stable that was being used as a theatre. This was rented to a retired Sea Captain called Charles Mate who already had control of a theatre in Dover. The cost of rent was £20 per year. Charles Mate decided to invest £200 and opened a new theatre on this site. A passage written around this time gives a good description of the atmosphere of the theatre: "Notwithstanding the neighing of horses and yelping of dogs in the stable, over which the stage was built, the place overflowed with the best company. But the most remarkable part of the business was that the performers came to the front of the house in the public street in their tragic and comic robes with powdered heads and painted faces til they had a sufficient number of auditors to pay their nights expenses. It was like the circus procession of later times."

Sarah Baker, a woman from a theatrical background, was England's first woman theatre manager, she had brought her Company to Dover and in 1785 she approached Mr. Cobb and sought of him permission to open a theatre in Margate. Mr. Cobb however refused her request. Sarah was intent on having a theatre in Margate and subsequently in just over a month she had a wooden theatre erected at a cost of £500. Sarah opened for her summer season in July, the same month that Mr. Charles Mate opened his season. After three months, Mate found the competition too strong. Having lost interest and money in his theatrical venture in Margate he returned to his theatre in Dover. Mr. Cobb was not best pleased with Sarah Baker.

Local townsfolk, under the influence of Cobb, sent a petition with over 900 signatures to parliament, requesting a Royal Charter. The 'Margate Playhouse Bill' was introduced and the Royal Charter was awarded, the licensee would have the power to send Mrs. Baker back to Dover and prevent other rival Companies from invading Margate. The licensee would be permitted to give dramatic performances there from 1st May to October 31st every year and permitted to sell alcoholic drinks for 24 hours daily. The permit remained valid for one hundred and twenty five years! Good news indeed for Cobbs Brewery.

Charles Mate decided that he wanted to try again in Margate, so he formed a partnership with Mr. Thomas Robson, a singer from Covent Gardens, London. Charles Mate’s former Margate theatre was re-opened and renamed the 'Theatre Royal'. Both these men had ambitious plans to succeed in Margate and towards the end of 1786, their co-owned 'Theatre Royal' was closed and preparations were made for the building of a new theatre.

The new site of the proposed theatre was to be on the East side of Hawley Square at the junction of Prince's Street, (now known as Addington Street). The land belonged to an estate and was purchased for the princely sum of £80. The cost of the theatre was approximately £4000. The 'flies' above the stage were built from ship timbers. Whether or not they are from Charles Mate's ship is not known.

The first stone was set down on the 21st September 1786 and the following inscription was on it, "This is the first stone of the Theatre Royal laid in due form and attended by the brethren of Thanet Lodge, by the proprietors, Thomas Robson and Chas. Mate, on the 21st of September, 1786, on the reign of Geo.III" Thomas Robson built for himself a dwelling on the west side of the theatre (some of the interior is still visible today) with the parlour being used as a box office and treasury.

On June 27th 1787, amid much ceremony, the Theatre Royal was opened. The first performances were "She Stoops to Conquer" and "All the Worlds a Stage" in which Charles Mate played the part of 'Diggory' - a character who paradoxically fancied himself as an actor! As of Mrs. Baker, her theatre building was carefully taken apart, transported by sea to Faversham, re-built and became part of the Canterbury Circuit.

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230 years on, the Theatre Royal still survives, even though, sadly it celebrated this milestone silently, as at the time it was closed after being purchased by the local Thanet Council.

Happy Birthday old girl, and here's to another 230 years!

Suffragettes 1910 - updated

2007-04-27T00:54:00.000+01:00

With the local elections due in the next week, I thought you might like to be reminded of a time when women risked everything for the right to vote. I suppose I have to ask...was it worth it girls?

The picture is taken from the stage door in Princes Street, looking down towards Addington Street and is interesting for showing not only a gas mantle and a Theatre Royal sign/light but also the fly tower escape ladder, none of which are in existence now. Click on the picture for a better view.

This version of the picture is taken from an issue of Bygone Kent lent to me by the old theatre retainer Brian Wallis who deserves, and will get, an entry all to himself. Bygone Kent is now run by local writer Nick Evans and deserves your support as an archive of days past, it's available from all good newsagents.

ADDENDUM
From information I've now found from the East Kent Times of July 6th 1910 where this picture originally appeared, it was Miss Christabel Pankhurst who spoke at the meeting which took place on Saturday 2nd July 1910. She had spoken on Friday 1st July at Ramsgate's Royal Pavilion and the previous day at Herne Bay. Christabel is central in the picture holding the large bouquet of flowers. The photographer was Mr G Houghton of Margate.

FURTHER ADDENDUM
I've now found proof that earlier that same year Christabel's mother Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst had made the trip to Ramsgate and Margate, the EKT of 21st April reports...

On 22nd April 1910 Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst spoke at Theatre Royal Margate. At the commencement of the proceedings there was some slight interruptions by young men, who finding that no fun was to be had out of the meeting, withdrew in a body, followed by seething remarks hurled at them by the speaker. Mrs Pankhurst claimed that women who paid rates, taxes and rent, or held a university degree should have a vote on equal terms with men. (According to statistics quoted in a letter to the paper of 26th March 1910 that would mean that about a million and a quarter women will then possess the vote in addition to the seven and a half million men) She urged the women of Thanet to support the women's franchise, and added that although the militant party to which she belonged had stayed their hand for the present there would be more drastic measures taken to keep their cause before the public unless their reasonable demands were conceded.

Auntie Pat - updated 21 June 07

2007-04-26T01:52:00.000+01:00

"Hello Auntie Pat"

Betty Marie Patricia Whitcomb was a loyal supporter of the Theatre Royal in the 1980-90's. Known as Auntie Pat to staff and friends, she was related to a former theatre manager. She was a writer and poet who's love of the theatre led her to became a tour guide for the theatre visitors. When she died in 1994, having no local living relatives (although she does have a daughter Jill, living in America), her request was to be interred at the theatre. This request was granted and her ashes were installed behind a brick in one of the walls backstage beside 'the corner' by stage manager at the time, Fred Hudson. The spot, marked with a brass plaque (shown below in a still from tv's Ghost Detectives), the brick picked out with white paint so it stands out, has been blessed by a priest and is now holy ground.

It has now become a custom amongst staff and picked up by visiting and returning artistes, to greet Auntie Pat on entering the vicinity of her resting place. There have however been consequences for making light of the many spirits including Auntie Pat who are said to haunt the theatre, as TV star Bradley Walsh once found out to his cost when appearing at the Theatre Royal. During his act, he started to make jokes about the ghosts and spirits, his microphone immediately started to malfunction intermittently until he apologised to Pat, from then on he had no trouble with his mike for the rest of the show!

The photo of Pat (above) was up until recently also on the wall at the interment spot, but has now been replaced with an epitaph explaining the white brick's significance, whilst the photo is now in the safekeeping at the home of its owner, ex Theatre Royal general manager Michael Wheatley-Ward.

Below is part of the Ghost Detectives tv show from 2002 dealing with Auntie Pat's interment, narrated by Tom Baker.