Prince's Theatre, Oxford Street, Manchester

The Prince's Theatre was opened in 1864 on a site near the corner of Oxford Street and Lower Mosley Street. The businessmen, who had funded the theatre in the hope of tapping into a new audience in a theatrical world dominated by the Theatre Royal and the Queen's Theatre, secured the services of Manchester's most celebrated actor-manager, Charles Calvert. His Shakespearean productions became synonymous with the Prince's and did indeed bring profits, leading to an extensive reconstruction of the theatre in 1869. However, the Prince's most successful period was probably during the twenty years leading up to the First World War when it developed a reputation for staging remarkable pantomimes, which were a high point in Manchester's cultural calendar and did much to further the career of 'Little Tich'. The innovations continued with the Prince's being the first to install 'tip-up' seats and the first to introduce 'early doors' whereby patrons could buy a more expensive ticket which allowed them to enter the theatre early and avoid the crowds.

The post-war years were less successful as the Prince's Theatre struggled in the face of competition from the city centre's super-cinemas. It was briefly home to the Manchester Repertory Company in the mid-1930s and taken over by leading impresario Prince Littler in 1937, but the Prince's could not be made viable and it closed in April 1940. The theatre was demolished, but plans to build a cinema on the site were interrupted by the Second World War and later abandoned. Peter's House office block now stands where the Prince's Theatre once stood.