The Theatre Royal Preston 11th July 1883

I have just picked up an advertising silk for a performance to be held at the Theatre Royal, Preston on 11th July 1883.

The silk has a Zulu War interest to it as one of the officers under patronage the event was taken place was Colonel A. C. Twentyman, Commanding King's Own Lancaster Regiment.

The event was to include a performance of music by The Magnificent Band of the King's Own Lancaster Regiment... This was followed by Harry H. Hamilton's Original Excursion and only complete realization of the late Egyptian War... which included tableaux of Kassassin & Tel-el-Kebir.

However, the next act would have been of interest to members of this forum:

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John Young Collection.

I'll try and get the Mem' to iron out the creases and may be it will scan better!

John Y.

What a brilliant find John, well done. Oh for a tape recorder in the crowd. Or at least someone with a brilliant memory and fast pencil!

Frank,

I think that would have been three bob well spent for the dress circle, or let alone a tanner for the third class seats!

I just checked the theatre is now a HSBC bank...If those walls could talk.

John Y.

Great find, i'm well jealous, would urge extreme caution
re, washing/ ironing..' on their return from egypt '.expect
it would look well cool framed. xhosa

Les,

It was £13 on EBay, the postage cost me more! A grand total of £27!

I might try the heavy books method for the creases.

JY

Damn and Blast your eyes.:). yeah good idea,ye old
pressing malarky. thanks for sharing JY. i can actually
be sick right now!.

That's a really nice find, I wonder if any of the newspapers at that time wrote a review or a critique of that concert.

Excellent find JY , agree with all the other posters , will look even better famed on the wall .
90th

It will look even better framed on MY wall.

Yes Frank , agreed mate , yours or mine , at least it'll see the sunshine !
90th

A really great find John, well done that man. According to Wikipedia Jones was with Hamilton's touring troup for a while and later joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. So potentially more of these are out there - all we need to do is find them!

Steve

Very nice John ! That would be well worth framing.

I don't know very much about Victorian theatre so I have done a little bit of research, I was interested to know how an individual would narrate an experience whilst at the same time keep the audience interested, apparently the Narration would have been done with props, music and costumes it would have been very dramatic and highly entertaining. I would imagine that Mr Jones VC would have been very animated and very loud there would have been plenty of bangs and flashes and dramatic piano music used to highlight the more intense parts of his story. It wouldn't have been very PC as there would more than likely be men dressed as Zulus with blacked faces, It would have been an amazing experience and all of this happening under flickering gas lamps.

Very good waterloo, very informative which turned
to very evocative, you set an excellent scene, it
was then easy to picture it in my minds eye..

"Located in Preston Lancashire. The original Theatre Royal was opened in 1802. It was rebuilt in 1870 with seating provided for 2,300. Converted in 1898/1899 into a music hall, seating was provided for 1,700. It held a Cinematograph Licence from 1910, by June 1911 films were being screened as part of the programme. By 1916 it was operating as a full time cinema. Operating as an independent cinema, the Theatre Royal was closed in 1928.

The Theatre Royal was sold to the Associated British Cinemas(ABC) chain, and they made alterations to the building, which included the installation of a Christie 2Manual/6Ranks organ, with the console on a lift in the orchestra pit. The Theatre Royal re-opened in November 1929 with H.B. Warner in “Sorrell and Son”. It was equipped with a Western Electric sound system.

ABC closed the Theatre Royal on 3rd December 1955 and it was demolished. They built their new ABC cinema on the site, which opened on 14th March 1959."

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