Saville Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue WC2 (now Odeon Covent Garden)

 

High on the plain brick facade of the Saville Theatre in 1931, Gilbert Bayes placed these medallions representing Art through the Ages, as a counterpoint to Drama through the Ages on the frieze below. The sequence starts with Egyptian Art, represented by King Tut, and finishes with the Victorian Period, a largish gent with a monocle and a topper. What school of art is represented by Pompadour is a bit of a mystery - the Art of Hairdressing, perhaps.

 

Saville Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue WC2 (now Odeon Covent Garden)

The Twentieth Century is represented by a group that already seemed to my postwar generation to be from some ancient epoch. The chorus girls with their ostrich-feather headdresses doing the Charleston look as historical as the Bacchantes in the Roman section, as does the gentleman on the right in evening dress, his hair brilliantined and holding an opera hat.
Again, I am sure he and the girl he is holding in a reassuring hug are portraits of actors in role. In fact, I think I have identified the pipe-smoking figure to the left. The character is obviously Sherlock Holmes, and the actor is probably Tod Slaughter, famous for playing villainous villains in melodramas at the Elephant and Castle. Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street was created by him.
In the 1920s, however, he played heroes, one of which was the great detective.
Come to think of it, is the cloaked assassin in the same play with Holmes? Which of the stories features a shooting?
Back in the late 1960s when I started work, I knew a bloke called Michael Slaughter, who was always known as Tod. Neither he nor any of us knew why - it was just the nickname every Slaughter was given, like 'Chalky' for anyone called White or Miller. How quickly fame evaporates....

Saville Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue WC2 (now Odeon Covent Garden)

I inadvertantly split the next scene between shots, due to not paying attention properly. Two elegant Georgian ladies, possibly Sheridan's Rivals, waggle their fans, watched by a young man in a tricorn hat and greatcoat. A 'professor' leans against his Punch and Judy tent, where Punch stands gloating over the body of his wife Judy, who he has whacked for the fourth performance that day. Dog Toby in his ruff poses, and a one-man-band attracts an audience playing pan pipes and a drum, with his trumpet ready.

The next group are Romantics, consisting of a pair of medieval lovers singing, with a sinister gent behind sneering through his moustachios. A Cavalier is next, followed by a heavily hatted-and-coated man with a pistol. Is he a highwayman or an anarchist? Joseph Conrad had adapted The Secret Agent as a three-act play in the 1920s but it flopped.
I have this strong feeling that all these figures are portraits of actors in various roles, but I can't identify any of them. If anybody has any ideas, the comment box is right below....

Saville Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue WC2 (now Odeon Covent Garden)

No pageant called Drama through the Ages could omit a Shakespeare section, not in London anyway, and Gilbert Bayes included some of the most famous Bardic parts here. First is Hamlet. Is that a portrait of John Geilgud, whose Hamlet was getting rave reviews at the time?
Next is Lady Macbeth, out-damned-spotting with a lamp. Sybil Thorndyke was appearing in the role at the time, but this actress doesn't have her chin.
From Midsummer Night's Dream, Titania sits on the back of a cart while Puck plays with puppets on a string. Bottom holds his head up high, but oddly separated from the others by Henry V, possibly a portrait of Lewis Casson, Sybil Thorndyke's husband, who had appeared in the role in 1928.

Saville Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue WC2 (now Odeon Covent Garden)

Gilbert Bayes had a wonderful eye for animals. Look at the way these horses stretch and strain against the control of the charioteers in the 'Imperial Rome' section of the frieze.
When Bayes was designing the frieze, the 1925 silent movie Ben Hur was huge, and this must be a representation of that. However, the charioteer does not look much like star Ramon Novarro, though the plump governor type on the right, holding his helmet, might well be Francis X Bushman as Mesalla.

This is my favourite bit - a Bacchanalia. The Bacchante dance naked with their goblets of wine held aloft, one of them being groped by an goatish old satyr. The girls are very 1930s, slim, lithe and in total contrast to the buxom women painted by Titian or Alma Tadema. Behind, that old drunk Silenus rides his mule, pushed by a fool in cap and bells who has been temporarily seconded from the next group....

....the Harlequinade. Harlequinades were inexplicably popular between the wars. Columbine dances, Pierrot looks mournful and Harlequin himself brandishes his comedy sword called a battachio, or slapstick, designed to create a satisfying thwack that could be heard in the rear circle when applied to anyone caught bending. He is followed by Clown holding one of his props, a string of sausages.

Saville Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue WC2 (now Odeon Covent Garden)

The Odeon Covent Garden wasn't an Odeon and has never been in Covent Garden: when it was built in 1931 it was the Saville Theatre in the parish of St Giles in the Fields. It became a cinema in 1970.

The dramatic Art Deco facade by T.P. Bennett has a frieze depicting Drama through the Ages, made in cast stone by Gilbert Bayes, one of the best sculptors of the period. He was responsible for the amazing merfirefighters on the London Fire Brigade HQ and lots of sculptured details for housing estates provided so the poor would have things of beauty as well as the rich.
It's difficult to interpret this pageant. Some seem to be simple historical scenes, others portrayals of actors of the early 20th century in famous roles.
On the main strip on the Shaftesbury Avenue side, Bayes starts in Medieval times with a man carrying a staff, which I think makes him the Lord Chamberlain, who in the 1930s was the official censor of plays in London and Westminster. The first Lord Chamberlain was appointed in 1485, which would fit in with the costume. Bayes was clearly concerned with the role of the Lord Chamberlain in censoring plays, as will become apparent later.
Next to him is a Minstrel, singing a roundelay to the lute.

A monk and a burgher represent the Chester Players. The Chester Mystery Plays were a distant memory in the 1930s, having been banned as Popish under Elizabeth I. Today's revivals started in the 1950s.
St George was a stock figure in medieval 'miracle' plays, which purported to tell the stories of the saints but were more usually based on pagan legends repackaged in Christian form. He kneels before an angel who crowns him with a laurel wreath. Behind him stands a winged boy holding arrows, the princess he saved, who holds the head of his horse, and a rather diminutive but aggressive-looking dragon.

On the other side of the main entrance (note how sympathetically the awning cuts off the feet of some of the figures) is a Greek Chorus, members of which hold the masks of Tragedy and Comedy. The kneeling figure at the front is holding a third mask of Staring Pensively Hoping One Looks Deep.They are led by the choryphaeus, holding a mirror.

The frieze takes a bit of a detour into popular entertainment at this point, with the arrival of Gladiators.
More later.