A Biography of The Palace
- 1888 The theatre opened on Christmas Eve. The building was commissioned by the Swansea Improvements and Tramway Company, which in addition, also built and ran the trams and Mumbles Railway.. The architect was Alfred Bucknall whose other work included the Ben Evans Store (destroyed during the blitz), Craig-y-Nos Castle and the Patti Pavilion. He was influenced by the work of the French architectural theorist Eugene Viollet-le-Duc. The cost of building was £10,000.
- 1892 Theatre leased to Adelaide Stoll and her son Oswald (later he became the greatest ever British theatre owner/impresario). They re-named the theatre 'New Empire'. All of the great music-hall artistes played here during this era: Marie Lloyd, Dan Leno, George Robey, Charlie Chaplin's mother and father.
- 1896 On 13th June the theatre presented an evening of cinema.
- 1901 Stoll, having opened the Empire in Oxford Street, relinquished the lease that was taken up by another company that then re-named the theatre 'Palace Theatre of Varieties'.
- 1905 William Coutts became manager of the Palace and 'The Star' in Wind Street (later the Rialto Cinema).
- 1906 The Palace re-opened as a house of 'legitimate' drama and films and was re-named 'Palace Bioscope'.
- 1912 The building was given over to full-time cinema as 'The Popular Picture Hall'.
- 1923 Stage acts were re-introduced and the building re-named 'Palace Theatre of Varieties'.
- 1949 Operating as a cinema it caught fire on a March afternoon. The stage, dressing rooms and the stage end of the auditorium were destroyed when part of the roof fell in.
- 1952 Maudie Edwards restored and re-opened the Palace with her own repertory company, transferring from The Grand.
- 1953 The repertory played for a year but with no grant-aid was forced to close.
- 1954 The 'Little Theatre' amateur group ran the theatre until 1961, importing professional companies and staging its own work.
- 1961-2012 Dark as a theatre, apart from a few short successful productions including The Follies in July 2002, it was used as a Supper Club, a Bingo Hall and a nightclub.
- 2012 onwards That's up to us.
