The London Palladium opened on Boxing Day 1910 with the first ‘grand variety bill’ featuring acts as diverse as Nellie Wallace and classical actor Martin Harvey. The Frank Matcham designed building occupies a site which was previously home to a Corinthian Bazaar, Hengler’s Grand Cirque and the National Ice Skating Palace. By the 1950s the theatre was known as the ‘Ace Variety Theatre of the World’, a reputation enhanced by the enormous worldwide popularity of ATV’s Sunday Night at the London Palladium. For many years it played host to the annual Royal Variety Performance, and was the home of London’s most spectacular pantomimes.
1910 - 1912 Programme Cover
The history of performances at The Palladium is by its very nature little more than a list of star names. The great and the good from both stage and screen queued up to top the bill at ‘the world’s most famous theatre’ and audiences flocked to see them.
Famous bill toppers in the 1920s included Harry Houdini, Dickie Henderson, Gracie Fields, Billy Bennett, Sophie Tucker, Burns & Allen, Jackie Coogan and Ivor Novello.

The Palladium hosted its first Royal Variety Performance in 1930 and the following year the first Crazy Week which brought together the famous Crazy Gang, and the theatre became their home with later shows including Life Begins at Oxford Circus and Round about Regent Street. Other stars of the 1930s included Jack Benny, Paul Robeson, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ramon Navarro, Cab Calloway, Ethel Barrymore, Josephine Baker, Fats Waller and Tom Mix.
In 1940 Top of the World played only four performances before being closed by the Blitz but the theatre soon reopened in 1941 with Max Miller and Vera Lynn in Apple Sauce. Star names of the 1940s included Arthur Lucan (Old Mother Riley) and Kitty McShane, Tommy Trinder, Elisabeth Welch, Tessie O’Shea, Jewel & Warris, Gracie Fields, Betty Hutton, Dinah Shore, the Andrews Sisters, Carmen Miranda, Martha Raye and Laurel and Hardy.
Judy GarlandVal Parnell took over as director and general manager in 1945 and began a regular policy of importing major American stars, the first great success being Danny Kaye. Kathryn Grayson, Eleanor Powell, Harpo and Chico Marx, Benny Goodman, Dorothy Lamour, Frank Sinatra, Abbott and Costello, Nat King Cole, Donald O’Connor, Hoagy Carmichael, Judy Garland, Jimmy Durante, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Bob Hope and Gypsy Rose Lee all followed. Home grown talents to top the bill were Max Bygraves, Julie Andrews, Alma Cogan, Harry Secombe, Terry-Thomas, Billy Cotton, Charlie Drake, Cilla Black, Norman Wisdom, Des O’Connor, Frankie Howerd, Ken Dodd, Tommy Steele, Ronnie Corbett, Arthur Askey and Shirley Bassey.