All the world’s a stage: Saville Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue
My parents were great cinema goers. They were of the generation that went to the pictures religiously; they were prepared to give almost any film a go and they very much inculcated that culture into me and my brother. Among my parents’ cinema-going tenets was that ‘big films’ should be seen in the first run cinemas of the West End. As a London cabbie, my dad kept a close eye on the releases and the cinemas scheduled to exhibit them. One of my favourite cinemas was the Odeon, Shaftesbury Avenue. To me, it was the height of glamour and excitement. First, it sat in London’s theatreland, which meant that any trip to Shaftesbury Avenue involved a walk through those streets of huge billboards and neon lights on the theatre façades announcing shows like Evita at the Prince Edward Theatre and Jesus Christ Superstar at the Palace Theatre.
Then, there was the Odeon itself. As a child, I had no idea that it had originally been built as a theatre (The Saville, designed by Thomas Bennett with Bertie Crewe, and completed in 1931). As I got older, I took it for granted that it was one of those stunning buildings specifically commissioned by the Odeon Cinema chain in the 1920s and 1930s. But as a child, the building was the soul of cinema and the home of ‘big films’: a big building for big films. The impression starts with the sheer size of the façade. Up and up it goes, with very simple horizontal fluting, to the top cornice, and because largely a blank canvas with very little ornamentation, it emphasizes verticality, bigness. (And bigness means much to a littl‘un.)
But where there is decoration, oh, goodness, what decoration! Along the main stretch of the façade are seven sets of medallions containing profile portraits of different eras of European theatre. One figure has a plumed Greek helmet and is the very definition of heroism. (As my parents had introduced me to the great Hollywood epics depicting the classical and biblical worlds such as Ben Hur and The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the young me took it for granted that a warrior of the ancient world would decorate a cinema.) However, this high line of decoration very much played second fiddle to the frieze running the width of the building at door lintel height. And it is that frieze which continues to enchant, delight and spark wonder in me. For here, Gilbert Bayes (his Selfridge’s clock featured in my first newsletter) executed one of the finest pieces of architectural sculpture not only in London, which is awash with fantastic examples, but the whole country.
Running from left to right (or west to east) in bas relief is the history of European theatre, and it is utterly amazing. Between the left corner and the great arched window topping the main entrance there are scenes depicting the medieval Chester Mystery plays. Move to the other side of the window and the frieze continues with the Greek chorus, then Roman Gladiators, which includes two men restraining lions on leashes. On and on it goes, with so many wonderful details: a Punch and Judy cabinet fronted by a dog in a ruff. Wonderfully, the dog looks pretty miserable; he clearly did not want to be a performer! There’s a one-man band looking out from underneath his thick scarf and top hat pulled down low over his forehead. Keep staring and in the mix there’s an actor in a trilby carrying a revolver in a pose of pure melodrama. Finally, on the extreme right-hand end, there are alluring Gaiety Girls, every inch the 1920s flapper.
However, this isn’t the end of the show, for the returns into Stacey Street (west side) and St. Giles Passage (east side) are where Bayes presents his final surprise. In a flash, the glamour, humour, and melodrama of the front façade disappears into something far more sobering and solemn. On each side a Muse draws back the curtain for a figure to stride forward. On the Stacey Street side it is St. Joan in armour, clearly drawn from George Bernard Shaw’s vision. It seems to be a statement about Anglo-French history, and how the nations had moved from enmity to understanding, to a deep relationship in which figures like Joan of Arc could be recognised for their qualities of character. This scene then seems to set up its partner piece of Entente Cordiale on the St Giles Passage side. Here the muse appears to be that of tragedy, Melpomene. Her act of drawing back the curtain shows striding out onto the world’s stage a soldier complete with steel helmet and puttees. Bayes shows us that the theatre not only did its war work by keeping up morale, but by actors donning the soldier’s uniform and fighting and dying for real in the Great War.
What a finale, what a showstopper, Bayes brings us to. He reminds us that no one escaped the shadow of the Great War in the twenties and thirties. And in doing so, he states that in the midst of life, of being entertained and diverted, we should always ensure that, at the going down of the sun and in the morning, we remember them.
Come on a walk with me and we’ll explore this, and many other wonderful works of public art, together.
