Theatre & Film Empire
Sir Oswald Stoll’s first brush with theatre came through his mother, an actress, and his step-father, who owned a variety theatre in Liverpool called the Parthenon Music Hall.
Teenage Manager
Oswald began working in the theatre from the age of 10, and when his step-father Joh George Stoll died in 1880, Oswald’s mother Adelaide took over the business, appointing a 14-year-old Oswald as manager. He did everything from petitioning actors and actresses to appear at the theatre to sketching and painting playbills and posters, and the theatre quickly became a success. One anecdote tells that, embarrassed by his age, a young Oswald would tell visitors that the Parthenon’s manager was not available to meet them, but he was able to deliver messages to him. Oswald would then run back and forth, taking messages to his own office then bringing back his own replies to avoid potential business partners realising the theatre was run by a teenager! The Parthenon was a true Variety Theatre, featuring traditional entertainment such as plays, musical numbers (many of which Stoll wrote himself) and dancing, alongside more unique displays such as waxworks, tableau vivants and even a memorable performance from visiting Ojibwe Native Americans from Iowa.
Beginnings of an Empire
In the early 1880s the Stoll family moved to Cardiff to begin managing Levino’s Museum of Varieties, which they reopened as the Empire Palace of Varieties in 1889. By 1895 the family had acquired three more theatres in Wales, and formed the Cardiff, Newport, and Swansea Empire Palaces Ltd with fellow theatre proprietor Edward Moss as Chairman and Oswald as Managing Director. By 1899, the Stoll’s had opened even more theatres, and combined their empire with that of Edward Moss and Richard Thornton to form Moss Empires, which boasted that it was the “greatest aggregation of variety theatres in the world” with over £2.08 million in capital (equivalent to around £330 million today). Moss Empires operated a theatre in almost all major cities in the UK, running almost 40 at their peak.
Oswald served as Managing Director for Moss Empires until 1910, when he withdrew his theatres from the company to step out independently, forming the Stoll Theatre Corporation Ltd. His theatres included the Hippodromes in Bristol, London and Manchester and the Empires in Chiswick, Shepherd’s Bush and Hackney. He was well known in his time, regularly rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous; he had Pablo Picasso paint sets for his productions, feuded with Harry Houdini, and vied for the affections of actress Vesta Tilley, who eventually married his rival, Walter de Frece.
Theatres and Innovations
Sir Oswald’s crowning achievement was the construction of the London Coliseum, which opened in 1904, and was designed by leading architect Frank Matcham. At the time, it was the largest theatre in the UK, and remains one of the largest in London. Sir Oswald implemented several unique features into the design which set it apart from competitors, including the first lifts to take theatre patrons up to the upper floors, and the first revolving stage in the UK. Likewise, Hackney Empire (also designed by Matcham and opened in 1901) was the first all-electric theatre in the UK and featured a projector, which also made it one of the UK’s first cinemas. Sir Oswald also introduced the first ice theatre to the UK, as well as several theatres that also incorporated elements of circuses and zoos. He was known for taking risks and truly living up to the ‘variety’ theatre name – his theatres would host everything from ballets to organ recitals to performing elephants alongside traditional plays and musical acts. Some of his more unique unique performances at the Coliseum included a mock trench battle between British and German troops in 1917 (which the Germans accidentally won prematurely…), a full cricket match between Middlesex and Surrey with a net stretched over the crowd to protect them, actual horse and dog races on the Coliseum’s revolving stage, a rodeo complete with cowboys, and sports including polo, tennis and Highland games. By the early 1930s Stoll had successfully predicted that television would be the medium of the future, and spent the later years of his life pioneering the radio and television transmission of variety bills and music hall shows in his theatres for the BBC: Coliseum Night was the first televised theatre show in the world.
In 1912, Sir Oswald put on the first Royal Variety Performance (originally known as the Royal Command Performance) at the Palace Theatre in London, in aid of the Variety Artistes’ Benevolent Fund.
Later Career & Film Production
In 1918, Sir Oswald founded silent film production company Stoll Pictures, which produced films at Cricklewood Studios and Surbiton Studios. Both studios have since closed down, although the site in Cricklewood sits adjacent to streets named Stoll Close and Oswald Terrace in recognition of Sir Oswald. At its peak, Stoll Pictures was the largest film production company in the UK, and held several records including producing the most expensive British film and the longest commercially made British film. The most famous film series produced by Stoll Pictures was the Sherlock Holmes series starring Eilie Norwood, which was praised by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The studio suffered significantly with the onset of ‘talkies’, and although it produced several sound films in the late 1920s and early 1930s, it was too slow to adopt the new technology and shut down in 1933 after the release of its final film, Dick Turpin.
Sir Oswald Stoll died in 1942, though his wife and sons continued to be active in the theatre business. In the 1950s, Stoll Theatres and Moss Empires finally reunited as the two companies were combined into Stoll-Moss Theatres Ltd under chairman Prince Littler. In 1999, what remained of Stoll-Moss Theatres was purchased by Andrew Lloyd Webber under the Really Useful Group banner. Today, plaques dedicated to Sir Oswald can be seen at several of his theatres, including the London Coliseum and Hackney Empire.
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