The most beautiful British theatre you've probably never heard of

Well, it wouldn’t have been comfy, that’s for sure. The 400-strong audience that crammed itself into the painted oak stalls and galleries of the eighteenth-century theatre in Richmond, North Yorkshire, would neither have got nor expected food, drink, loos, seat numbers – or seats, for that matter, as most sat on long benches.

The theatre was lit by tallow candles, which would have smelt like a sheep being rendered, and the theatregoers, from servants and soldiers at Catterick Barracks to aristocrats up for the racing season, would probably have been pungent themselves.

Today, in the snowflake 21st century, the fragrant audience numbers a mere 200 and enjoys all sorts of decadent facilities, such as a bar, in a modern extension. They can even book tickets in advance, instead of sending a servant to bag the best seat.

The theatre was built by the 26-year old actor-manager Samuel Butler and his 46-year old, twice-widowed wife Tryphosa (‘thrice shining’) in the wake of a 1788 Act of Parliament that handed control of the spoken word onstage to local authorities.

It now calls itself the Georgian Theatre Richmond to distinguish itself from the Richmond Theatre in Surrey, and it is absolutely charming. Daily tours have just begun for the year and are led by volunteer guides, many of whom knit the soft missiles deployed at the annual panto or supply their pets as extras (‘When we did the Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch brought her dog. We only had one accident.’)

With Gerry, our guide, we peered through the porthole used by luckless servants to see if the moment was ripe for refreshments and tried the ‘kicking boards’ fixed loose and low on the front partitions so the audience could clatter its critical opinion.

The stage is pretty well as big as the auditorium, with a 14 per cent rake – one wonders if the actors ever overshot and fell in the orchestra pit, now concealed under removable panels downstage – and theatregoers would have been just as well-lit as the actors.

Backstage is an 8ft-square dressing room, one of a pair that doubled as lodgings for actors, assorted children and ostlers. Horses carried props, costumes and scenery between theatres on the ‘Butler Circuit’. Actors walked - up to 40 weary miles a day.

There’s a tiny museum with Britain’s oldest surviving flat, an 1828 woodland scene thickly painted on canvas with an interior scene on the back, plus playbills, tickets, reproduction costumes made by volunteers and Edmund Kean’s colossal snuffbox.

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Best of all are the backstage trapdoors, one with its mechanism for shooting, say, the Genie of the Lamp, miraculously onstage. In the 1780s this would have occurred in front of the aristocratic Zetlands and Richmond’s mayor in their onstage boxes.

Honestly, go. I liked it so much I’ve booked for the panto in December.

How to visit

Richmond Theatre, Yorkshire 01748 825252; georgiantheatreroyal.co.uk. Tours from mid-February to mid-November, Monday to Saturday, on the hour from 10am to 4pm. Adults ￡5, children ￡2, English Heritage members ￡4. See website for shows.

Three more must-see Georgian Theatres

Bristol Old Vic

0117 987 7877; https://bristololdvic.org.uk

Georgian theatre, built in 1766 that claims to be the longest continuously-operating theatre in the English-speaking world (while Richmond is the oldest theatre to be operating in the same building). An HLF grant has allowed them to share their wonderful archive and the first heritage tours start in autumn 2018.

Theatre Royal Dumfries

01387 254209; theatreroyaldumfries.co.uk

Scotland’s oldest theatre seated 600 people when it opened in 1790, taking its cue from the Theatres Royal in both Edinburgh and Bristol. It was renovated by Charles Phipps in the late Victorian era but later became a cinema. It was restored as a permanent base for the Guild of Players in 1959. Contact theatre for tours.

Theatre Royal Haymarket

020 7930 8800; trh.co.uk

Originally the ‘Hay Market’ and later the ‘Little Theatre in the Hay’, this 1720 theatre is a whippersnapper compared to its Covent Garden neighbour the Theatre Royal Drury Lane (1663). But it’s had a glittering roster of actor-managers at the helm, from writer Henry Fielding and murderer Charles Macklin to one-legged Samuel Foote (played by Simon Russell Beale in Mr Foote’s Other Leg at the theatre.

Secret Britain | More surprising attractions on your doorstep