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11 unusual facts about Gaiety Theatre


Allan Monkhouse

He began to write drama for the Gaiety Theatre, Manchester, shortly after it was opened by Annie Horniman, along with Stanley Houghton and Harold Brighouse, forming a school of realist dramatists independent of the London stage, who were known as the Manchester School.

Colm Ó Foghlú

More recently, he was Musical Director for Riverdance at the Gaiety Theatre and in 2006 wrote and directed a modernised dramatisation of the great Irish mythological epic Táin Bó Cuailgne.

Gaiety Theatre, Ayr

During its 106-year history, its stage has seen performances from comedians, singers, variety acts and icons such as Harry Lauder, the jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli, Ken Dodd and a host of other stars.

Gaiety Theatre, Dublin

The theatre played host to the 1971 Eurovision Song Contest, the first to be staged in Ireland, during the Gaiety's centenary year.

They sold it in 1965, and in the 1960s and the 1970s the theatre was run by Fred O'Donovan and the Eamonn Andrews Studios, until - in the 1980s - Joe Dowling (former Artistic Director of the Abbey Theatre) became Director of the Gaiety.

The Gaiety Theatre is a theatre on South King Street in Dublin, Ireland, off Grafton Street and close to St. Stephen's Green.

Gaiety Theatre, Isle of Man

In February 2008, The Gaiety played host to Hollywood movie Me and Orson Welles, starring Zac Efron and Claire Danes.

Gilbert Arthur à Beckett

His adaptation of a French operetta by Émile Jonas called The Two Harlequins opened the new Gaiety Theatre, London in 1868, together with his distant cousin, W. S. Gilbert's, Robert the Devil and another piece.

Henry Chance Newton

Works attributed to Richard Henry include Monte Cristo, Jr (burlesque melodrama 1886); Jubilation (musical mixture 1887); Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim, a parody of the Mary Shelly novel Frankenstein, presented at the Gaiety Theatre, London, in 1887; and Opposition (a debate in one sitting 1892).

Lily Castel

It was a race against time for the pair, not least when they arrived in Dublin to find that the stage layout at the Gaiety Theatre was unsuitable for the routine they had rehearsed.

Marie Studholme

In 1900 she took over the role of Nora from Violet Lloyd in The Messenger Boy at the Gaiety Theatre, London, where she enjoyed great success with the wartime song hit, "When the boys come home once more".


Anthony Glavin

In 1963, during his first year at UCD, he was approached by the Rathmines and Rathgar Musical Society and played Jack Point in The Gaiety's production of The Yeomen of the Guard.

Billy Mayerl

In the 1930s Mayerl composed several works for the musical theatre including three connected with horse racing, Sporting Love, opening at the Gaiety Theatre, London in 1934, Twenty to One (Coliseum 1935), and Over She Goes (Saville 1936).

Diarmuid and Grania

The play, in three acts, was dedicated to Henry Wood, and its first performance was by Frank Benson's English Shakespearean Company at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin on 21 October 1901; it appeared in a double bill, being followed by Douglas Hyde's Casadh an tSugáin (The Twisting of the Hay Rope) performed by Irish-speaking amateurs supplied by the Gaelic League (the first Irish-language play ever seen on a regular stage).

Glen Michael

Michael also starred in several pantomimes with Jack Milroy and completed many enjoyable runs at the Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow, the Gaiety Theatre, Ayr and the Edinburgh Kings in various productions and plays.

Henry Pettitt

Their Gaiety Theatre musical burlesques included Faust up to date (1888), which remained a hit for several years and coined a new meaning for the phrase "up-to-date", meaning "abreast" of the latest styles and facts.

International Boy Scouts, Troop 1

On December 12, 1911, Clarence Griffin and the Scouts, mostly British and all students of Saint Joseph College, the primary and secondary school for foreign boys located on the "Bluff" in Yokohama, gathered at the Gaiety Theater on the Bluff to demonstrate Scouting skills and to officially celebrate the beginning of the troop.

The Chieftain

The fault lay partly in Burnand's weak and pun-filled libretto, but also was a result of changing audience tastes, as musical comedy, such as those produced at the Gaiety Theatre by George Edwardes, was supplanting light opera on the London stage.

The Spring Chicken

The Spring Chicken is an English musical comedy adapted by George Grossmith, Jr. from Coquin de Printemps (1897) by Jaime and Duval, with music by Ivan Caryll and Lionel Monckton and lyrics by Adrian Ross, Percy Greenbank and Grossmith, produced by George Edwardes at the Gaiety Theatre, opening on 30 May 1905.