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ALEXANDRA THEATRE
The Alexandra Theatre, “the Alex”, was
on the corner of Stoke Newington Road and
Princess May Road. In 1892 the Princess May
Road School had opened on one corner of the street.
Five years later, The Alexandra Theatre and Opera
Opera-house, with room for an audience of three thousand,
house
opened its doors across the road. It was a rule that
women must not wear bonnets in the front rows, so
the person behind could see the stage.
The school is still there, but the Alex has gone.
My mother, Kate Milton,
Milton ran a theatrical
boarding house at 45 Brighton Road
in Stoke Newington.
Sometimes we would have a team of boy singers
(called “The
Songsters”); or sometimes it
The Golden Songsters
might be Chorus Girls. Teams of youngsters would
have a man and wife to take care of them.
They would arrive Sunday afternoon and leave the
following Sunday morning. It was a lot of work for
my mother – all the linen (bed and table) was boiled
on the copper on Monday morning and put through
the mangle, rinsed, blued, starched
and ironed ready for next week.
They would bring in food for my
mother to cook at ten p.m. when they came back
from the theatre. My father had died when I was six
months old, and this was how Mum earned a living
and brought me up.
Before the war Mum and I and a neighbour
used to go to this theatre each Friday night
for “Gala
Night”. During the interval a spotlight was
Gala Night
shone around each gallery and you got a prize if the
light stopped on you! It meant going down to the
stage to get it, which was a bit scary but I do recall
receiving a manicure set once!
(néée Milton)
Joan Crocker (n
How much did a seat in the gallery cost in 1897?
a) One guinea; or
Answer
b) Sixpence; or c) Two shillings
My parents were great devotees of the
musical shows and used to enjoy very
much outings to that gorgeous theatre,
The Alexandra. When in 1940 they were showing
Schubert’s Lilac Time, I was dragged along by my
parents. It was during the Blitz and there weren’t
many people at all in the theatre.
We sat underneath the Circle, and
during the performance the most
awful air raid occurred – the bangs, and the guns and
the bombs. In the interval the stage manager came
out and said “Ladies and Gentlemen, you can’t
possibly go out at the moment – it’s too dangerous.
However, the cast are prepared to go ahead with the
show, so would those of you who are upstairs come
down, and sit with the others underneath the Circle,
as a sort of protection”.
And so, the thing I remember was as the
curtain went up for the second Act, there
was this man dressed in a lovely lilac
coloured costume as Schubert, standing by a grand
piano, and he started to sing the famous Schubert
Serenade. As he sang it, bang, bang, bang all the
time. And do you know until their dying day, my
parents could never hear that Schubert Serenade but
they’d say “Bang, bang, bang.”
As we came out afterwards, I can just about remember shrapnel dropping from the shells they were
throwing up to
the aircraft, and we walked
along in single
file, and the buses were
running! We
got on a bus, and got back
to Stamford Hill,
Hill where I’ve lived all my life. It was
wonderful, those people that continued: that chap
never moved, while he stood by the piano singing.
So if you hear Schubert’s Serenade, think of the
Alexandra and the Blitz!
Joan Potter
The Alexandra Theatre first opened its doors
To the public on Boxing Day 1897 with a
Christmas panto – with Miss Billie Barlow starring as
Whittington
ittington. Reviews were positive –although
Dick Wh
ittington
some had doubts: the Morning Post said: “Generally
Generally
speaking, it may be said that the fun has been kept
vulgarity,, though occasionally a tendency in
clear of vulgarity
that direction is visible, and should be repressed.”
(b)