Royalty Theatre, Glasgow

The Royalty Theatre, Glasgow (later the Lyric Theatre) was a theatre in Glasgow at the corner of Sauchiehall Street and Renfield Street. It was built in 1879 as part of a development by the Central Halls Company chaired by David Rattray, and was one of the first theatre designs of Frank Matcham. In 1895 it was one of the four theatres brought together by Baillie Michael Simons of Glasgow in a new company Howard & Wyndham Ltd. The Royalty staged plays, opera, and musical comedy and later became home to repertory theatre The author and journalist Neil Munro had an association with the Royalty Theatre. In his Erchie MacPherson story, "Jinnet's First Play", first published in the Glasgow Evening News on 24 October 1904, Munro has Erchie take his wife Jinnet to a production of Arthur Wing Pinero's play Letty at the Royalty. Five years later, Erchie MacPherson featured as the main character in his play Macpherson, produced by the Scottish Playgoers Ltd. at the theatre in 1909. The Royalty became the Lyric Theatre in 1914 when it was sold to the YMCA. It was rebuilt after a fire in 1953 but demolished in 1959, and replaced by St. Andrew House, a large concrete office block, which is now an hotel.