The Windmill Theatre in Great Windmill Street, London, was a variety and revue theatre best known for its nude tableaux vivants, which began in 1932 and lasted until its reversion to a cinema in 1964. Many prominent British comedians of the post-war years started their careers at the theatre.
- Venue
- Windmill Theatre
- Address
- 17-19 Great Windmill Street, London, W1D 7LF, England
- Town
- London, GB
The Windmill Theatre in Great Windmill Street, London, was a variety and revue theatre best known for its nude tableaux vivants, which began in 1932 and lasted until its reversion to a cinema in 1964. Many prominent British comedians of the post-war years started their careers at the theatre. Great Windmill Street took its name from a windmill that stood there from the reign of King Charles II until the late 18th century. In 1909 a cinema, the Palais de Luxe, opened on the site. It stood on the corner of a block of buildings that included the Apollo and Lyric theatres, where Archer Street joined Great Windmill Street, just off Shaftesbury Avenue. The building complex incorporates Piccadilly Buildings, an 1897 building which housed the offices of British Mutoscope and Biograph Company, an early producer of films. The Palais de Luxe was one of the first places where early silent films were shown. As larger cinemas were opened in the West End, business slowed and the Palais de Luxe was forced to close. It was re-opened briefly by Elsie Cohen in 1929 when it was briefly the first "art cinema" in Britain showing foreign films. Cohen would re-establish the idea at the Academy Cinema in Oxford Street in 1931. In 1930, after her husband's death, Laura Henderson bought the Palais de Luxe building and hired F. Edward Jones, an architect, to remodel the interior to a small 320-seat, two-tier (stalls and circle) theatre. It was then renamed the Windmill. It opened on 15 June 1931, as a playhouse with a new play by Michael Barringer called Inquest. Its existence as a theatre was short and unprofitable, and it soon returned to screening films, such as The Blue Angel (1930) starring Marlene Dietrich. Mrs Henderson hired a new theatre manager, Vivian Van Damm, who developed the idea of the Revudeville-a programme of continuous variety that ran from 2:30 pm until 11 pm. They began to put on shows with singers, dancers, showgirls, and specialty numbers. The first Revudeville act open