Are you sitting comfortably? Then, I’ll begin to tell you a handful of stories we uncovered recently at West Yorkshire Archive Service, to celebrate #WorldHeritageDay. From live horse races to nude swimming pools and even a whole new theatre that never came to be, in a pamphlet titled The Grand: The First Hundred Years we found tall tales that even some of our most seasoned staff had not heard before…
Written by Aaron Cawood. Images credited to West Yorkshire Archive Service
Harris, horses and unhappy endings
We’ll start off strong with a story of stagecraft the likes of which had never been seen before. There have been many moments in our theatre’s history that are marked by iconic stage craft – like the first and only removal of our chandelier in 2012 to accommodate for The Phantom of the Opera’s iconic and unreliable set piece – but what follows is a description of something truly beyond imagination…
“In the spring of [1893] one of those big Augustus Harris productions from Drury Lane, called ‘The Prodigal Daughter’, showed up the capability of the Grand stage in the realm of spectacle. The play featured Voluptuary, a Grand National winner, in one of the most realistic horse races ever staged. The horses galloped at a terrific pace on a revolving platform, the first to be used in Leeds. It kept them in full view of the audience from which well-known citizens were invited to walk on and make a crowd.”
This section of the pamphlet would be interesting enough had the story only been one of horses galloping their way across our boards, but it goes on to reveal interpersonal tensions that almost led to the erection of a brand-new theatre quite close to home…
“In 1894 the Grand acquired what might be called a mixed blessing – the awning at the front of the house, a subsequent bugbear to drivers of tall vehicles in Briggate, which frequently scrape it.
This same year was equally shattering to Wilson Barrett, who was notified that the Directors were going to take over the running of the theatre, with John Hart as Managing Director.
Feeling himself badly treated, Barrett offered to form a syndicate and buy the theatre at a price considerably below its real value.
When this came to nothing, he threatened to build an opposition theatre, pointing out the advantage he would have over the Directors in securing the best attractions, for his name was known in theatrical circles far beyond the Grand.
Nevertheless, the Directors held to their course as Barrett hurried home from America to superintend the building of his new theatre, a site for which was said to have been acquired near the Leeds railway stations. In May of that year, George Arliss was appearing at the Grand in ‘A Woman’s Revenge’. A man’s revenge, however, was denied Wilson Barrett.”
Spectacle, stinkbombs and suspicious packages
When we say The Grand has been around long enough to see a few sights throughout history, we mean it. As recently as 1970, the venue found itself at the centre of political tensions, planted plasticine and a strange smell…
“[In 1970] the Grand kept up the good work, opening a four-week run of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ in mid-March. Staging of this massive musical again showed how adept the Grand was when it came to handling a huge ‘revolve.’ Yet another musical giant, ‘The Valkyrie’ was brought to Wagner-starved provinces by Sadler’s Wells in mid-May.
A month earlier, the ‘Red Army Ensemble’ from Kiev had got up a sizeable head of steam. At the same time, demonstrators, protesting against alleged persecution of minority groups in Russia, clashed with police. Some militants had penetrated the auditorium and managed to drop stink bombs. Army bomb disposal experts were alerted after police were told two explosive devices had been planted in the theatre.
Police made a thorough search and discovered two suspicious objects – one in a lavatory and another in an alley near the stage door. They were found to be no more dangerous than plasticine and a cardboard box.”
Patrons, pits and packing them in
While a packed house at The Grand might look impressive now, the auditorium used to be packed a little more tightly than we’re used to.
“Accommodation for patrons at the opening was divided into pit-stalls, pit, dress circle, upper circle, ampitheatre circle, gallery, six stage boxes, eight family boxes, eight upper private boxes and six ampitheatre boxes. The total seating capacity was 2,600, with standing room for another 200. Today that 2,800 capacity house has dwindled to 1544, with standing for 80.”
Including standing, our current capacity sits at 1549 so, in total, only slightly less than it was over 46 years ago!
“The provision of pit-stalls was an innovation in the provinces for at the time the floor space of most theatres was taken up by pit-seating, then considered the ‘backbone’ of the theatre. The seats were usually long wooden forms which could be packed more closely together at the will of the management.
There would inevitably be a ‘packer-in’, whose job was to wadge a mass of sweating humanity into ever closer proximity with his peremptory: ‘Move up further, Missus… Shift up, Mister…’
Eventually, so wedged did the ‘pitties’ become that quite often none of them dare leave his (or her) seat during the interval, for it would be impossible to reclaim it.
The introduction of pit-stalls was considered an encroachment on the rights of the ‘pitties’, but the concern of successive managements for the comfort of patrons was to increase until eventually the pit was no more.”
Short, sweet and salacious splashing
When you think of The Grand, you might think high-brow entertainment – or at least that’s what we’d like to think! But, like our venue City Varieties Music Hall, The Grand is no stranger to shows that generate a little bit of shock and scandal. The rise in television use changed the theatrical landscape, with many more shows willing to push the envelope than ever before.
“Decadence, permissiveness, licence? It was anybody’s decision. But the theatre-goers later in the year revelled in the acquaintance of a heap of nudity in Paul Raymond’s ‘Pyjama Tops’ and ‘Birds of Paradise’, Michael Pertwee’s translation from the French of Gaby Bruyere.
The former opened a three-week season in June [1973] in a naked romp which had girls dipping in and out of a 4,000-gallon glass-fronted swimming pool. The latter attraction, running for a fortnight, was about a wealthy widow who had bought a tropical island in 1910 under the impression it was a riding school. It turned out to be a brothel with, among other saucy attractions, a purring Fenella Fielding. Jimmy Logan was there, too.”
Author’s note
There are plenty of stories like this in that pamphlet alone – and so many we had never come across before. It turned out, upon further searching, that many passages from it were transposed directly from a much older unpublished book about The Grand.
As usual, though, our trip to West Yorkshire Archive Service felt like the first steps down a rabbit hole. In another box, on an unrelated search, we found a box full of copies Sea Breezes (a boat magazine). What first seemed utterly random and, honestly, like a misplaced box in the wrong archive, soon made much more sense as we uncovered the story of an old general manager with a history in sailing, the handwritten manuscript of the very same book about The Grand, and the tale of two men named John Beaumont…
But that’s a story for another time.
