King's Theatre, Glasgow

The King's Theatre is a Category A listed Edwardian playhouse standing on the corner of Bath Street and Elmbank Street in the Charing Cross area of Glasgow. Designed by Frank Matcham and opened in 1904, it holds 1,785 people across four levels. The building is owned by Glasgow City Council and run day to day by ATG Entertainment. It works chiefly as a receiving house for touring musicals, drama, dance, comedy and music, and it gives the city's amateur companies a high-profile stage. Locally it is best loved for its annual Christmas pantomime, first staged in the 1960s and an unbroken fixture since 1971.

The King's Theatre was commissioned by Howard & Wyndham Ltd under its chairman Baillie Michael Simons as a sister house to the company's Theatre Royal in Glasgow. Frank Matcham designed it, making the most of the prominent corner site with two decorative elevations in red Dumfriesshire sandstone, mixing Baroque and Art Nouveau influences. Built at a cost of more than £50,000, it opened on 12 September 1904. An iron canopy from the Saracen Foundry in Possilpark originally wrapped around the front, though it had gone by the Second World War.

In the 1930s the theatre broke with the custom of closing for the summer. In 1933 managing director A. Stewart Cruikshank tried out a late-starting variety bill called the Half Past Eight Show, first staged on 5 June that year. It changed weekly, drew enormous crowds and produced a record run of 31 weeks topped by Dave Willis. The King's also presented musical plays, drama, ballet and, before 1914, film seasons. Over the decades the stage was graced by performers including Sarah Bernhardt, Laurence Olivier, Katharine Hepburn, Tyrone Power and Ray Walston, and the Jackson Five and Dolly Parton appeared in a Royal Variety Performance in the late 1970s.

Pantomime arrived only in the 1960s, after the Alhambra Theatre closed, and quickly became the theatre's signature, with stars such as Stanley Baxter, Jimmy Logan, Rikki Fulton, Gerard Kelly and Elaine C. Smith. In 1967 Howard & Wyndham sold the building to Glasgow Corporation, securing its future at a time when many British theatres were closing. An extension was added to the rear in the early 1970s as part of the neighbouring Charing Cross Complex, and the theatre was designated a Category A listed building in December 1970.

The King's was a main venue when Glasgow became European City of Culture in 1990, and it underwent major refurbishment for the occasion. Management passed to the Ambassador Theatre Group in 2002 and the centenary was marked in 2004. A further interior restoration programme was announced in 2008 with Simpson & Brown as architects: the stalls and grand circle seating was replaced in autumn 2009 in a style in keeping with the building, with better legroom and no centre aisle in the stalls to improve sightlines, along with new carpet, a new orchestra pit railing and preparation for air conditioning.

Getting in

Step-free access is via the Elmbank Street entrance. If the door is not open when you arrive, press the buzzer and an usher will come to you. There is no lift in the building.

• If you need step-free access, book seats anywhere in the stalls. Note that there is a steep downward slope between rows A and K.
• There are five wheelchair positions at the rear of the stalls.
• Seats J36 and 37, K36 and 37, and M36 and 37 in the stalls suit customers who wish to transfer to a theatre seat.
• The accessible toilet is behind the stalls auditorium, next to the Elmbank Street accessible entrance.
• The stalls bar has step-free access, or you can ask for At Seat Service on arrival using the QR codes on the back of the seats.
• Seats are on average from 16 to 17 inches wide.

Assisted performances

Audio described, captioned, BSL interpreted and relaxed performances are scheduled through the year and listed on the theatre's assisted performances pages. The venue uses the Mobile Connect system for audio description and hearing enhancement, which works from any seat: download the app and bring your own headphones. For captioned shows the stalls or grand circle give the best view of the caption units, and for BSL performances rows D to H offer the clearest view of the interpreter. Touch tours are sometimes offered alongside audio described performances and are advertised on the relevant show page. Front stalls seats are recommended for anyone who needs a closer view of the stage.

Booking and contact

Accessibility Assistance is on 0333 009 5399 (Typetalk 1800 1 0333 009 5399). Joining the free ATG Access Membership Scheme lets you book accessible seats online, register for available access concessions and, where eligible, reserve a personal assistant ticket. A Visual Story is available by emailing glasgowaccess@atgentertainment.com, which is useful for autistic visitors or anyone who likes to prepare for a visit.