Pantomime became a major part of the theatre’s success from 1903 onwards, attracting stars including comedian Les Dawson. Staff said the annual productions were once the venue’s financial lifeline.<\/p>\n
Among the theatre’s memorabilia is a signed message from Dawson thanking the Garrick Bar with “fond memories”.<\/p>\n
Parts of the building date back to 1935, when owner Leon Salberg oversaw major changes before his death in his office two years later. Stories about his ghost continuing to haunt the theatre have become part of its folklore.<\/p>\n
Despite wars, economic downturns and changing entertainment habits, the theatre has remained open for most of its history, with its longest closure coming during the Covid pandemic.<\/p>\n
Simon Creed, the theatre director, said the theatre has grown since reopening.<\/p>\n
“Since the pandemic we’ve grown, we now do over 300 performances per year, which is staggering, and bringing musicals, plays, drama, comedy and live music.”<\/p>\n
He said the venue’s appeal came from balancing modern productions with its historic atmosphere.<\/p>\n
“There are lots of venues in the UK who have had multi-million pound refurbs and really changed their look and style,” he said. <\/p>\n
“Whereas here we’ve kind of kept it a bit traditional.<\/p>\n
“We have lots of good programmes, so bringing new shows in Birmingham, that’s the key, really, because without a good programme, we’re nothing really.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pantomime became a major part of the theatre’s success from 1903 onwards, attracting stars including comedian Les Dawson.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":958651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-958650","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116571380859443981","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=958650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/958651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=958650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=958650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=958650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}