The theatre dominates the right-hand side of the postcard (circa 1907) shown below, with the tower and right-hand spire and the elaborate gable bearing the name ‘Ealing Theatre’ in the centre.
A hall of variety was Ealing’s sole place of entertainment in 1832. It stood next to the New Inn in St. Mary’s Road and may have been the Royal Standard Theatre of 1850.
A concert hall in the Broadway adjoining an older building was opened in 1881. Known as the Lyric Hall by 1883, it was replaced in 1899 by the Lyric Restaurant and the New or Ealing Theatre, later called the Ealing Hippodrome, Little Titch, above, appeared there, then a cinema (Palladium), and demolished in 1958.
An interesting interior which retained the appearance of a theatre to the end. Two balconies with circular-curved fronts linked on either side of the proscenium to narrow boxes, whose slender columns carried an elliptically arched sounding board. Square proscenium with enriched architrave and tympanum over.
The circular ceiling was divided into eight panels. The ornament throughout had a rather Adamish flavour.
Brian Russell
(Both the postcards are from my collection)