Chiswick’s theatres, cinemas, playwrights & performers

Chiswick Timeline of Writers & Books: A quick guide

65 years after the closure of the Chiswick Empire in 1959, the area’s illustrious theatrical heritage is documented here and on our Writers Trail, with material from the Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society and others.  As well as its theatres, Chiswick has been home to many distinguished playwrights, actors and directors, including Harold Pinter, John Osborne, the Redgrave family and Peter Brook.

1. The Chiswick Empire & other theatres & cinemas

The Chiswick Empire played host to many of the world’s top stars, including George Formby, Marie Lloyd, Sybil Thorndike, Vera Lynn, Arthur Askey, Laurel and Hardy, Ken Dodd and Cliff Richard (below right, click image to zoom in). At various times, the theatre featured circus acts, film, music hall, opera, comedy, pop music, pantomime, farce and Shakespeare.

55 of the performers are celebrated (above) on Sir Peter Blake’s Chiswick Empire collage, created for the ‘Chiswick Timeline – A History in Arts and Maps’, the mural at Turnham Green tube station. These also include Tommy Cooper, Max Miller, Max Bygraves, Julie Andrews, Morecambe & Wise, Alma Cogan and Liberace, who topped the bill at the final show on June 20th 1959. The theatre was demolished in July 1959 to make way for the office block, Empire House.

In September 2019, Sir Peter Blake unveiled a huge image of his Chiswick Empire collage near Turnham Green tube station, at the launch of the ‘Fourth Plinth for W4’ project, curated by Abundance London.

Theatre at the Tabard in Bath Road W4 is an intimate, 80-seat theatre close to Turnham Green tube station. Opened in 1985 as the ‘Tabard Theatre of New Writing’, the theatre above the Tabard pub was founded by the actress Andrea Black, with the help of the playwright Sam Dowling, the actor Ron Forfar and the playwright Dale Reynolds. It quickly built a strong reputation for new writing. Over the years it has played a key role in the development of London Theatre, acclaimed for its professional work and extremely popular within the community of West London. It operated as the Tabard Theatre until 2019, when it was renamed Chiswick Playhouse. In 2022, it reopened as Theatre at the Tabard under Simon Reilly and Sarah Reilly of Take Note Theatre.
– Theatre at the Tabard

The Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation Theatre at ArtsEd (the Arts Educational Schools) stages high-quality productions of plays and musicals by its graduating students. Tickets are on sale to the public but tend to sell out fast. ArtsEd alumni include: Julie Andrews, Angela Lansbury, Darcey Bussell, Adam Cooper, Nigel Havers, Bonnie Langford,  Martin Clunes, Samantha Barks, Arlene Phillips, Janie Dee, Laura Haddock, Jac Yarrow, Lashana Lynch, Miriam-Teak Lee, Charlie Brooks, Nigel Harman, Tuppence Middleton, Danny Mac, Scarlett Strallen, Summer Strallen and Zizi Strallen.
– ArtsEd – What’s On
– ArtsEd – From Miss Marple to Hamilton, a history: The Chiswick Calendar

The Q Theatre near Kew Bridge was a thriving theatre from the 1930s to the 1950s. “The first works of aspiring playwrights such as Terence Rattigan and William Douglas Home were performed at the Q and mega stars such as Peggy Ashcroft, Vivien Leigh, Margaret Lockwood, Joan Collins, Anthony Quayle, Sean Connery and Dirk Bogarde trod the boards here early in their careers” – Gill Clegg, BCLHS (link below).
– The Q Theatre: Cinema Treasures
– The Q Theatre: BrentfordTW8.com
– The Q Theatre: Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society

St Michael’s Players celebrate 75 years of amateur drama in Chiswick in 2024. Their first production was in 1949. They perform three productions a year at the St Michael’s Centre in Elmwood Road, W4.
– St Michael’s Players: The Chiswick Calendar

Theatre West 4 (TW4) celebrated 50 years of amateur drama in 2014. The group’s original venue was Chiswick Town Hall and it now performs at the Questors Studio Theatre in Ealing. The playwright Jimmie Chinn wrote two plays especially for Theatre West Four, one of which, Straight and Narrow, became a huge West End hit starring Nicholas Lyndhurst (see Corona Stage Academy below) .
– Theatre West 4, celebrating 50 years of amateur drama: ChiswickW4.com

Ballet Rambert (renamed Rambert Dance Company in 1986) was based at 94 Chiswick High Road from 1971 to 2013, where it rehearsed till the company moved to a purpose-built centre on the South Bank. The premises have been converted into The Chiswick Cinema, which celebrated its third birthday in the summer of 2024.
– Ballet Rambert – Timeline

Corona Stage Academy: This stage school, founded in Chiswick, was responsible for training Dennis Waterman, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Jane Asher and Michele Dotrice. It was started by Rona Knight, who trained as a dancer and lived with her family at 537 Chiswick High Road. In 1936 the Knight family and the school moved to 26 Wellesley Road. In 1955 the Corona Academy moved to 16 Ravenscourt Avenue, W6. It closed in 1989.
– Corona Stage Academy: Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society

Chiswick Theatre Arts was founded in September 2008 by its Principal Miss Georgina Burns. Although CTA is a very young school it has grown rapidly with new students discovering CTA by word of mouth. The school started life in a very small studio on the popular Devonshire Road W4 and then expanded to larger purpose designed premises in Belmont Road at the beginning of 2010. Two of its pupils have taken lead roles in Disney’s Dumbo and Matilda in the West End.

2. Chiswick’s playwrights and screenwriters

John Osborne and Harold Pinter shot to fame while living in Chiswick, thanks to Look Back In Anger and The Caretaker, two of the 20th Century’s greatest plays. It has been home to two Nobel Prize-winning dramatists, Pinter and WB Yeats (a founder of the Irish National Theatre) and several other distinguished playwrights and Oscar-winning screenwriters, including Patrick Hamilton, Anthony Burgess, Robert Bolt, Sir Arthur Pinero, Dame Iris Murdoch and Alun Owen. Living playwrights include Nick Hennegan and Sophie Swithinbank. See links below:

– Chiswick Timeline Writers Trail features 36 notable playwrights, poets and novelists, including two winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature (and one nominee) and three Oscar winners (and one nominee).
– Harold Pinter and The Caretaker (with link to Michael Billington, his biographer). In 2024, the Chiswick Book Festival co-organised a ‘Pinter on Screen’ season with The Chiswick Cinema, curated by Michael Billington and attended by Lady Antonia Fraser (poster above).
– John Osborne and Look Back In Anger (with link to Mark Lawson article in the Guardian)
– WB Yeats in Bedford Park – co-founder of Ireland’s National Theatre – and his plays.
– Also on the Chiswick Timeline Writers Trail: Anthony Burgess, Patrick Hamilton, Sir Arthur Pinero, Robert Bolt, Alun Owen, Dame Iris Murdoch, Dylan Thomas, Carla Lane, Lynn Redgrave…

3. Chiswick’s actors, performers, directors and critics

Actors, performers, directors, and choreographers who have lived in Chiswick and written memoirs, include Sir Michael Redgrave (and Vanessa, Lynn and Corin), Eric Morecambe & Ernie Wise, Tommy Cooper, Peter Brook (display above, Gunnersbury Museum), Edward Gordon Craig, Dame Gillian Lynne, Dame Sheila Hancock, Dame Eileen Atkins, Fenella Fielding, Alvin Rakoff, Rula Lenska and Wayne Sleep. Impresarios and actor-managers include Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Sir Charles (CB) Cochrane and Sir Nigel Playfair, of the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith.
Peter Brook received the Lebedev award in the 2019 Evening Standard Theatre Awards: interview.

Theatre critics and academics living and lecturing in Chiswick include Michael Billington (Harold Pinter’s biographer) and Dr Pamela Bickley and Professor Graham Holderness, who have both written extensively about Shakespeare. Alexander Pope edited versions of Shakespeare’s plays.

Rock musicians who’ve lived or were born in Chiswick include Pete Townshend, Roger Daltry and John Entwistle of The Who, Phil Collins and more. Guy Fairbank leads a ‘Chiswick Rocks’ walk during the Chiswick Book Festival.
– Pete Townshend Unveils Studio at the University of West London: Will house the synthesiser collection of The Who guitarist – ChiswickW4.com, October 2024. Like many other musicians of his generation, including fellow UWL alumni Freddie Mercury (Queen) and Ronnie Wood (The Rolling Stones), Townshend attended the Ealing School of Art, now part of the University of West London.

See links to their books here:
– Chiswick Timeline of Writers: Non-fiction – Stage, screen and radio

4. The Chiswick Shakespeare

The Chiswick Shakespeare (above) is one of the most sought-after editions of the Bard’s works, with illustrations by Byam Shaw. Copies sometimes become available for sale at Foster Books, which kindly provided these images.
– The Chiswick Press and the Chiswick Shakespeare

– From An Antique Books Guide
The Chiswick Shakespeare is a renowned series that featured all of Shakespeare’s best-known works in handy pocket volumes, each with updated text and beautiful illustrations by Byam Shaw. The bindings are uniform, with stunning art-nouveau gilt patterning which compliments Shaw’s beautiful illustrations. A single volume can be bought for anything from £35-£70 whilst complete sets are very scarce and often reach low thousands. These are some of the most sought-after editions of any Shakespeare publication and look beautiful on a bookshelf. I have added a number of photographs to show both the deluxe vellum edition and the standard green cloth edition.

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Chiswick Timeline Writers Trail
Read more stories via the Writers Tales page.

The Chiswick Timeline of Writers & Books lists almost 500 writers who have written a book and lived in Chiswick W4, or written books about the area.  See A Quick Guide and Chiswick may be Britain’s most literary location – The Observer.