Manchester Theatre History

  In July 1934 the late, great one and only Sophie Tucker, known as ‘the Last of The Red Hot Mama’s‘ appeared in Manchester at the Palace theatre.  It must have been wonderful to see her live.  I was totally spoilt for choice of the many  songs that she was well know for, especially ‘My Yiddishe Mama‘  but this is the...

    In September 1928 the theatre broke new ground by putting on the latest Jerome Kern musical ‘Show Boat‘, which made its Broadway debut in 1927 and was produced by Florenz Zeigfield, this was a totally new concept for him to be involved in. As most people know this went on to gain worldwide fame in its film version...

In April 1926  ‘Cochran’s Revue of 1926′ starring Hermoine Baddeley  and Ernest Thesiger was on the stage prior to its London Pavilion debut.  Hermoine Baddeley  was the sister of Angela Baddley who played Mrs Bridges in the 1971 television series ‘Upstairs, Downstairs‘.  A very talented pair of sisters!!  In September of 1926 a new musical ‘Sunny’  written by Otto Harbach,...

‘The Roaring Twenties Era’ was celebrated at The Palace Theatre with the show ‘Follies of 1921’.  Definatley a flapper’s show, it starred The Palace Girl Dancers, ‘Gus Chevalier’, (who was a top comedian of his day and in 1932 was a regular at the London Windmill Theatre), and a host of other stars. In that same year a young John...

In December 1912  in the middle of a variety performance the Palace Theatre put on a short play called ‘The Loss of The Titanic‘ as well as a film of the National Picture News Weekly.  It must have been incredibly emotional as footage was shown of the sinking of the Titanic which had only happened a few months prior. Sadly...

In 1904 the World famous Scottish performer, Harry Lauder appeared on stage in his kilt and sporran! I have discovered that beside being well known as a comedian and singer, he wrote the song ‘I love a lassie’. He was at one time, the highest-paid performer in the world. In 1907 there were two unusual acts that appeared during this...

The Palace Theatre was well known for the its reputation of putting on variety shows in this era.  In 1902 the amazing Florrie Fforde appeared. She was known as ‘the Queen of the sing-along music hall in her day.’  If she was a star today she would have had many No 1 hits.  Below you can hear her singing some of...

It opened with a flourish on June 8th 1891 with a ballet called ‘Cleopatra’  in addition was a Variety Show, which was true to the name give to the theatre ‘The Palace of Varieties’. The well known Salford architect Alfred Derbyshire designed it  but in 1896 the talented theatre architect Frank Matcham was commissioned to put in a pass door...