Charing Cross Music Hall - History

History

The new theatre was built in the substantial two level space formed by two of the arches of the undercroft of the station, and opened in 1867, as The Arches, was renamed in 1883 as the Hungerford Music Hall, and became known in 1887 variously as the Charing Cross Music Hall, Gatti's under the Arches and Gatti's Charing Cross Music Hall. By 1895, the hall boasted an attached grand cafe and billiard saloon.

As a young man, Rudyard Kipling lived in Villiers Street, and visited Gatti's, and wrote My One and Only, for a Lion Comique at the hall. His experiences in the hall formed the basis for his Barrack-Room Ballads series. Kipling also wrote a story called My Great and Only (1890) describing a visit he made to Gatti's. He wrote that the hall held four hundred “when it’s all full, sir”. A weekly periodical for artistes, The Music Hall and Theatre, provides a review on 23 November 1889 of a variety performance:

Twixt Love and Duty, Leo Dryden has his hands full, to say nothing of his voice, which is equally full . . . Charles Ross, of Gaiety fame, so well known as the Dainty Champion, secures rounds of applause by the rendering of his new characteristic song entitled She’s a real good mother . . . James Fawn wants to know who cuts the policemen out? Why the soldier whom Fawn impersonated to the very life. He does like to be in the know, you know, equally so with his hearers, who would willingly sit out a whole night with him if he’d keep them in the know all the time, but James must draw the line somewhere, so he draws it at Gatti’s.

Baroness Orczy, creator of the Scarlet Pimpernel, described a visit to the hall, at the turn of the century, in her autobiography:

The only hall which appealed to we two inveterate Bohemians was a funny little one under the arches of Charing Cross Bridge where aspirants to fame were given a trial with a view to a possible engagement in one or the other of the important halls. Thus they were 'tried on the dog', as the ordeal was called, and many a famous artiste started his or her career under the 'old arches'.
I remember seeing there the début of the Levy sisters, who became such favourites and made such fortunes afterwards. There was no stage at the 'Old Arches', only a platform in the centre of the hall, where sat enthroned the manager at a rostrum when he announced each item of the programme together with the name of the artiste about to perform and tapped the desk before him with a wooden hammer. The audience sat on seats and benches all round the central platform, very much as they do round a prize-ring. A few privileged members in the audience were permitted to sit on the platform with the manager, but this privilege entailed the obligation to pay for that gentleman's drinks.