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Another Lost EmpireKevin Catchpole laments the passing of his favourite theatreDateline: 8th November, 2004It has to be admitted that my own affair with theatre began, not in any building -unless it was my own semi-detached home. For it was a cardboard cut-out theatre which first opened my eyes to the magic of the drama. And the magic of the farce, the ballet and, not least in my case, the wizardry of variety and its great predecessor, the music hall. I confess this cardboard scaffold was no coloured masterpiece but a poor penny-plain, thing and not even mine own! It had been purchased for an older brother who, to the best of my knowledge, and with the exception of the occasional pantomime or school play years later with his own children, hardly entered a real theatre from that day to this! The theatre I fell in love with, in fact the first I remember, was the Victorian structure, known in my time as The Royalty, which stood until, alas, a few months ago, in Chester's City Road Never an impressive building - unless you were inside it, that is - it was not described in hushed tones with names like Matcham or Christopher Wren. It started life as a hut where workmen building the great General Railway Station at the top of City Road would be fed and watered. Perhaps they even slept there. What they left behind was, after the Roman Amphitheatre, the beginning of the only real theatre that most people would remember. In between there had been the Music Hall, which in my childhood was already a cinema, and today is a shop. For Cestrians in the 20th century The Royalty was synonymous with every kind of entertainment from wrestling and variety to repertory and the amateur operatic society. On this stage in May 1922, Marie Lloyd, wearing her latest Parisian gowns, sang twice-nightly following afternoons at the races on the ancient Roodee course. That holiday booking proved to be among her last appearances at the top of any bill, since she died in October that year. My own first visit to the Royalty was to pantomime in company with my mother, an aunt and a cousin. The show was the annual Teddy Carlton production, this year Cinderella. As we sat over lunch in the Tamil Café, my aunt who was clearly as excited as either of us children enthusiastically allocated the roles of Cinderella and Buttons to my cousin and me while she and my mother would be the Ugly Sisters. Mother remained silent on the matter. Years before my first visit, a boy from over the North Wales border, itself barely a mile from the Royalty Theatre, had also been taken to pantomime. He was to become Emlyn Williams, playwright and actor, who recalled the Chester theatre a year or two before his death. In a letter replying to my plea for his support for a public campaign to save the Royalty, Williams, too, remembered his childhood experience. "A palace, it seemed to me then - and could be once again, I'm sure". A palace indeed. From the street a glass canopy welcomed patrons into the small box-office area whence those with stalls tickets passed across a corridor into the main auditorium. Patrons with dress circle seats mounted a red carpeted staircase, assisted on the right hand side by a polished brass rail which itself seemed to signal the opulence of theatre. From the stalls or circle, one gazed enviously up or across to boxes on either side. Less attention was given to the gallery. Not only was this out of vision, the entrance was via a separate box office directly from the street. Only many years later did I enjoy a seat in the gallery, in company with a noisy party of male friends. It was a variety bill, topped by a maturing Freddy and the Dreamers. So voluble, to my shame, were some of our party that during the interval the star himself visited the gallery to beg for our co-operation in the second half. "I've got my living to earn," pleaded the star. To me, stage-struck since that first pantomime, the very idea of barracking had and has always been anathema. I was relieved to note my companions held their peace thereafter. By the 1980s Chester Royalty had succumbed to television, and to the provision by the City council of the small Gateway repertory theatre. This building however, with fewer than 600 seats, was quite inadequate to ensure the prosperity of major productions, symphony concerts or even the Gateway's own pantomime. Such capacity made life difficult for operatic and dance productions, to say nothing of touring shows. A year or two before I moved from Chester to work in Salisbury, I organised, with the help of other enthusiasts, a campaign to bring the Royalty into public ownership in partnership with the trust responsible for the Gateway. Since we were quite unable to secure the freehold of the building however, our campaign lost its momentum. A year or so ago, Chester lost the Royalty altogether when it was finally demolished and the site prepared for redevelopment. Ironically, in a few months time, the Gateway will be demolished, too. Thus the city will find itself without theatre or concert hall: in fact, without a serious stage at all. There are plans, I understand, for a performing arts space …whatever that may mean for citizens who once had a palace in which theatre and music could rule. Articles Indices:
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