page_title: King's Theatre, Edinburgh
section_title: History of the theatre
hierarchical_section_title: King's Theatre, Edinburgh / History of the theatre
caption_attribution_description: English: Phyllis Dare (1890-1975), singer and actress
context_page_description: The King's Theatre is a theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland.
context_section_description: The King's became famous for being a venue belonging to the theatre empire Howard & Wyndham. The theatre was originally commissioned by the Edinburgh Building Company Ltd, chaired by Robert C. Buchanan. The King's was built as a rival to the successful Royal Lyceum Theatre, which had been established for over twenty years. Buchanan was experienced in the industry as he already managed a large number of provincial variety theatres, however this was his most ambitious project yet.
  The foundation stone was laid on 18 August 1906 by Andrew Carnegie, with copies of the current newspaper and coins buried underneath. During construction the owners experienced financial troubles being unable to pay the final costs to the contractor William Stewart Cruikshank and to the architects, surveyors and lawyers, at which stage the operating rights were transferred to a new King's Theatre Company, of which Cruikshank was a major shareholder. Buchanan was managing director and he took on the day-to-day running of the King's, with Cruikshank`s son A. Stewart Cruikshank as manager. An attempt to sell the theatre to Howard & Wyndham Ltd chaired by Michael Simons, and therefore clear the debts, failed and the Cruikshank family decided to run it themselves with A Stewart Cruikshank becoming managing director in June 1908.
  The building opened to audiences for the first time on 8 December 1906, with a festive production of "Cinderella" with Violet Englefield as the Prince and Phyllis Dare as Cinderella. The theatre began a successful career as a variety touring house with later visits from Carl Rosa Opera and Richard D'Oyly Carte's company. Under Cruikshank the bill of fare was widened to include drama, musicals, large scale pantomime, revues and opera.  
  Cruikshank later realised that his theatre was at a disadvantage by not being part of a larger circuit. In 1928 he sold his theatre to Howard and Wyndham, becoming managing director of the group under the chairmanship of Ernest Simons. Cruikshank, by now one of the leading theatre directors in Britain, became chairman in 1944 on the passing of Ernest Simons.
  In 1934 A. Stewart Cruikshank decided it would be worth experimenting with a summer season in Edinburgh along the lines of seaside entertainment. The show, known as The Half Past Eight, had already been a great success at the theatre's Howard & Wyndham namesake in Glasgow, where comic Jack Edge performed to full houses for fourteen weeks. Edge was brought over to Edinburgh to open the show, but with meagre audiences it flopped and lasted just six weeks. Howard and Wyndham brought in Charles and Ilona Ross to produce their winter pantomimes. Charles Ross knew that the normal closing the theatre for the summer was wasting an opportunity, and he wanted to revive the summer show which had failed previously. Cruikshank was at first sceptical, but in 1937 he gave in, and gave the show four weeks to succeed or he would close it. Ross could not find a big star to front the show, and it seemed it was to fail once again. He eventually tracked down a young fairly unknown comic called Dave Willis. Willis was just what Ross had been looking for. The Half Past Eight show opened on 31 May 1937, and was billed as 'An after dinner light revue of song, dance and laughter – also starring Cliff Harley, Florence Hunter and the Charles Ross Girls'. At first, only a few hundred came to see the show, and by the end of the third week Cruikshank was about to close the production. What happened next was not to be expected. News of the show spread by word of mouth and by the end of the following week, the King's was packed nightly with standing room only. The program changed every week. There were big opening and finale numbers with the dancers in sequinned and feathered dresses, and Dave Willis was a hard working individual appearing throughout most of the show. By 1941, the show had stretched to twenty-eight weeks. When Willis moved to open a Glasgow version of the show, Harry Gordon took over. Subsequent stars were Stanley Baxter, Rikki Fulton and Jimmy Logan.
  In 19
caption: Phyllis Dare, ca.1906
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