The Mermaid Theatre is a theatre in the City of London, and the first built there since the time of Shakespeare. It was also one of the first new theatres to abandon the traditional stage layout; instead a single tier of seats surrounded the stage on three sides.
It opened in 1959 with a production of Lock Up Your Daughters. The theatre was the life's work of actor Bernard Miles with his wife, Josephine Wilson. Raising money from public subscriptions, he oversaw the creation of the new theatre at Puddle Dock, in Blackfriars, on land formerly occupied by a warehouse. The site was near a plot that, during the Jacobean period, was the location of an abortive attempt to build a theatre (named Porter's Hall) for the amalgamation of the Children of the Queen's Revels and Lady Elizabeth's Men; this project, undertaken by Philip Rosseter with distant backing from Henslowe and Alleyn, was ended because of complaints from the neighborhood's residents. The theatre opened in 1959. It was the scene of many productions, including an annual staging of Treasure Island, with Miles reprising his role of Long John Silver, whom he played in a television version.
The Mermaid Theatre also ran the Molecule Club, about science, for children.
Miles died in 1991. Josephine Wilson died in 1990. The theatre was slated for demolition in 2002 as part of redevelopment plans. Already it had fallen into disuse, the buildings being used more often as a conference centre than a theatre. A preservation campaign by actors and other supporters attempted to reverse the decision. In April 2003 Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, ordered the council to block the demolition. As of March 2005, the building was still in limbo, with new plans submitted for the redevelopment of the site. Nothing materialised and the building now operates primarily as a conference centre. The BBC Concert Orchestra use it for the occasional concert and the BBC regularly take it over for recordings of a popular weekly radio show, Friday Night is Music Night that has recently showcased the likes of violinst Nigel Kennedy and singer Josh Groban.
