Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

OVERVIEW

The fourth theatre on a Covent Garden site licensed by Charles II in 1663 and in use ever since; the present house opened in 1812 and is owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber's LW Theatres. It is the most-cited haunted theatre in Britain, described by Peter Underwood in Haunted London and by the theatre's own historians.

HISTORY

In 1848 workmen opening a bricked-up passage on the Russell Street side found a skeleton with a dagger in its ribs; the theatre's tradition attaches the Man in Grey to it. Charles Macklin killed the actor Thomas Hallam in the green room in 1735 with a cane through the eye; Joseph Grimaldi, Sheridan's resident clown, and the comedian Dan Leno both worked here.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

The Man in Grey — powdered hair, tricorne, cloak, sword — walks the same route from the end of the fourth row of the upper circle along the back gangway to the wall by the royal box, by daylight and usually during a matinée or rehearsal; the theatre historian W. J. Macqueen-Pope described the path and the theatre treats a sighting as luck for the show. Macklin is reported backstage, Grimaldi guiding nervous actors on stage, and the smell of Leno's lavender in a dressing room. The theatre tells the stories on its tours.

VISITING

Performances year-round; backstage tours are run by the theatre.