‘Hot Water Bottles, Buckets of Stained Glass and Please Don’t Lick the Wallpaper’

The Gaiety Theatre

Douglas, Isle of Man

Up the marble steps. Push on the polished brass handle to open the door and make your entrance into the wood panelled foyer. Under the glittering chandelier a bust of theatre designer Frank Matcham gazes towards the sea.You have arrived at the Gaiety theatre.

The theatre opened its doors in 1900 as the Gaiety Theatre and Opera House. Matcham had performed miracles in seven months transforming the shell of the Pavilion into a venue for high class entertainment. Social classes were segregated by ticket prices, the luxury of their surroundings and even the entrances they used to access their seats. The fact that the theatre looks so magnificent today is a tribute to the time, effort and dedication of the people who had the vision to save and preserve such a special place. Many tales were told by our knowledgeable guide. Not often does a tour commentary include the words ‘hot water bottles, buckets of stained glass and please don’t lick the wallpaper’. Our party wound its way through corridors and up stairs, where all was carpet and wallpaper and chandeliers, for we were starting off as toffs and going to the stalls.

Once seated the glory of the auditorium is all around you. 












The original drop curtain masks the stage from view.








Then watch the furling of the magnificent tasselled and fringed green velvet curtain that is a show in its self (and as the curtain opening motor cost £140k I should think so too). 

You find out why flying bars had a lot in common with whistles, glimpse fly combs, lighting rigs and three special traps.

From centre stage gaze out at where the audience would be and imagine a first night crowd in furs, diamonds and white tie standing up from their green velvet seats and applauding you to the rafters.

Reality bites and you go downwards on stone staircases, past brick walls painted white and a sign saying ’No quick changes here’. Then you see the machinery that helps to make the magic.

Old green metal lighting generators and the intricate wooden beams that allow for scenery to go up and demons to come down and (unique to this theatre) a very special Corsican trap. This trap is all about facilitating ghost movements, but you need to see that for yourself. 

The grey concrete floor is dusted with glitter and scraps of gold ribbon…more magic I expect.

Then it’s up, up and not away but to the Gods. 
The magnificent wedding cake of the auditorium can be seen in all its glory from this vantage point. 















There are costumes on display up here, souvenirs from the Centenary productions of ‘The Telephone Girl’ and ‘The Corsican Brothers’. 

  

 
Still we go up. Climb some steep brick stairs and there, up under the roof, is the final sanctum. The projection suite from the cinema incarnation of the 1920s. 
The equipment is simply astonishing.     

Then we clatter down from the cheap seats via the plain red staircase, past ‘No ice creams past this point’, past the colours of a stained glass window. 

And finally to the foyer and back to the twenty-first century.
Take a bow Gaiety. Your show should run and run.