LONDON THEATRES

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 100, 30 April 1927, Page 20

LONDON THEATRES

SEVENTEEN SOLD IN ONE DEAL.

(Directors of the London Theatre of Varieties, Ltd., having consulted their shareholders,- decided to accept an offer made by Mr. A. E. Abrahams and Mr. Charles Gulliver to purchase the following London suburban theatres:— Camberwell Palace, Clapham Grand, Groydon Empire, Croydon Hippodrome, Collins, Islington, Ilford Hippodrome. Islington Empire, Hammersmith Palace, Lewishain Hippodrome, Willesden Hippodrome, Camberwell Empire, Putney, Hippodrome, Woolwich Hippodrome, Shoreditch Olynipia, Poplar Hippodrome, Kilbnrn Empire, Rotherhithe Hippodrome. Mr. Abrahams stated that tho purchase price, as announced in the ''Daily Chronicle,"wasnearly £1,000,000. The future of the theatres' is not settled. They will be let, and lessees will have opportunities of converting '■ some of them into cinemas, but a good proportion will continue to provide entertainment as they do now. Both Mr. Abrahams and Mr. Gulliver have control of a great deal of theatrical property, apart from the group mentioned above. Mr. Abrahams, who began his connection with theatres .by selling advertisement space in programmes and drop curtains, holds the freeholds of the Scala and Aldwycb Theatres, and has a long lease of the Garrick. , He owns a considerable number of cinemas in London, and many prominent provincial variety halls, including Liverpool Olympia and Glasgow Coliseum. Last year he bought the New Oxford Theatre for £130,000, and then sold the site to Messrs. Lyons, who are building a new restaurant in its place. Mr. Gulliver has also been long connected with the theatre world, though he started as an office boy, and was interested'in selling motor-cars before attracted to the stage. He became managing director of tho London Palladium in 1912, when he was already controli ling twenty-two music balls tibigughout HIS £9JS*SJi ■'''""" ~ s