Trafalgar Studios

History of the Trafalgar Studios

The Whitehall Theatre is a very fashionably designed 1930's art deco theatre was listed Grade II in 1997. The theatre was extensively restored and refurbished in 1985.

The theatre is mostly associated with two people - Phyllis Dixey and Brian Rix In 1942 the revue The Whitehall Follies was presented here - featuring Phyllis Dixey whose claim to fame was as the West End's first stripper! So popular where these non-stop performances that Dixey took over the lease of the theatre and these revues stayed until 1947. These revues where then replaced by a farce written by RF Delderfield which was called Worm's Eye View which also proved successful and run for two seasons at the Whitehall bringing the total number of performances to 1,745. Following this another farce moved into the Whitehall, produced by Brian Rix and called Reluctant Heroes. This proved successful and Brian Rix went on to produce many farces at this theatre, which collectively became known as The Whitehall Farces and they began to be regularly televised, reaching a far greater audience than the small Whitehall Theatre could seat. The Whitehall Farces stayed until 1969 when the theatre presented the 'nudie' show Pyjama Tops which featured Fiona Richmond and run for 5 years.

After this an exhibition was staged here of memorabilia from the two world wars, but this breached the theatre's license and it was closed down.The theatre returned to legit theatre when it reopened in March 1986 after a refurbishment to presented a range of plays, farces and musicals including When We Are Married, When I Was a Girl I Used to Scream and Shout, Run For Your Wife and A Tribute to the Blues Brothers.

The theatre was used to record various television and radio programmes between 1997 and 1999 - most notably Channel 5 TV chat show Jack Docherty Show - with live theatre peformances often taking place later the same evening.

In June 2003 the theatre's owners, Ambassadors Theatre Group (ATG), announced plans to close the theatre from July 2003 - the theatre briefly re-opened to stage the short lived play with music, Rat Pack Confidential, in September 2003.

In March 2004 it was then announced that, from May 2004, the theatre would, after refurbishment, re-open as The Trafalgar Studios with two performance spaces - a larger 380 seat space and a 100 seat space.