Rare: Gaiety star Ada Reeve Remembers Gatti's Music Hall - Players Theatre - 1964

Ada Reeve was born in Jubilee Street, Mile End, London on 3rd March 1874 and was a child performer playing juvenile roles in plays and pantomimes from the age of four.
She went on to become a great star of Music Hall, Pantomime and Musical Comedy; she worked extensively in London's West End, and on tour at home and abroad. Later on she made a number of film appearances, revealing herself to be a fine character actress.
By all accounts, professionally she was a tough, formidable woman -- given to smoking cigars in private life!
This magnificent recording was made at the Old Player's Theatre (formerly 173 & 174 Hungerford Arches, Villiers Street; now completely gutted and part of the offices of Price Waterhouse Coopers at 1 Embankment Place).
The occasion was Ada Reeve's 90th birthday on 3rd march 1964, and at the conclusion of a programme of Music Hall , she gave this speech in which she reminisces about her days on these very premises, then the Hungerford Music Hall, eventually to be Gatti's Charing Cross Music Hall or Gatti's in the Arches.
She recalls the building itself as she remembers it as a young child, and also speaks of the great stars of the Music Hall stage with whom she appeared at that time -- occasionally singing some of their numbers.
Ada Reeve died two years after this appearance at the Players' in London at the age of 92.
I am most grateful to playerstheatrearchive.org.uk for permitting me to use this unique and historically priceless sound recording.
I have used photographs from books in my collection to illustrate Miss Reeve's recollections.

[@NickGodwin]

The occasional rumbling noise is not thunder. It is the trains going overhead, the Players Theatre was in Villiers Street under the railway arches. You could hear it during the performances.

[@vivmehes9252]

My Grandmother Kitty Clinton was an understudy for Ada Reeves for two years in London, and after Kitty and her husband Billy Brown came to Australia under vaudeville contract, there friendship continued in Melbourne, Australia when Ada lived for some time.

[@mogranne]

Priceless! Thank you so much for sharing this.

[@riverbankjohn]

My Great Grandfather Thomas Tinsley was Chairman of Gatti's Music Hall at Charing Cross xxx He gave Harry Lauder his big break