* an “Royal Albert Hall” tour – & a ‘Cirque du Soleil’ matinee

Regular followers will know, my London Shoes tend to steer clear of the well-known, more popular landmarks and history of old London town – focusing only on the lesser known and more unusual of its historical aspects.

However – every once in a while, an event comes along that I feel warrants inclusion as a blog topic – and a couple of Friday’s back that’s exactly what happened.

On Friday 26^th January, accompanied by the good lady wife Angela –  I spent the best part of the day at London’s magnificent and prestigious “ROYAL ALBERT HALL”.

The purpose of the visit was to see the matinee performance of “Cirque du Soleil’s-Alegria” spectacle.

However – before the show, I had booked a ‘Guided Tour’ of this iconic venue.

Now – the tour was just slightly restricted, especially ‘backstage’ because anyone who has ever been to a ‘Cirque’ event will be aware of just how much space their stage setting and equipment takes up.

But nevertheless, the tour was extremely interesting, and here’s a summary of stuff I found out about this magnificent venue, that I didn’t know much about before:-

• In 1851 Prince Albert wanted a platform to showcase ‘British Arts & Sciences’ to the world, at the forthcoming ‘Great Exhibition’ being held in Hyde Park – so he commissioned the construction of a massive concert hall, for the benefit of the great British public.
• The Albert Hall took only 4yrs to build from start to finish – because it was constructed by The Royal Engineers, not a host of building contractors.
• The venue was built with distinctive terra-cotta brickwork.
• Its dome is made from 338 tonnes of wrought iron – covered with 279 tonnes of glass.
• Encircling the dome is an 800ft long mural that represents “The Triumph of Arts & Letters”
• The grand opening of the Royal Albert Hall was in 1871, but sadly poor old Prince Albert didn’t live long enough to see the finished product of what his vision had been.

• When the Albert Hall opened its organ was the biggest pipe organ in Britain, with 9,999 pipes.
• It was clear from the very first day the Albert Hall opened, when the very first note was played on the organ, the acoustics in the place were rubbish – echoes were bouncing about all of the place. So, to try and solve the problem massive canvass sheets of canvass were placed in various places on the ceiling to dull the sounds and prevent echoing. It sort of did the job, but not to any great extent.
• The Albert Hall has 5,272 seats, of which 1,270 are privately owned.

 

• A private seat will cost you £250,000 but with it comes a 999yr lease (which you can pass on as an inheritance if it’s written into your Will).
• When the Albert Hall was initially opened, it was entirely lit by gas. A brand-new scientific system was installed that lit every single one of its gas lamps within a few seconds. The Albert Hall became fully ‘electric’ by 1888.
• The Albert Hall has staged ‘The Proms’ since 1941 – and roughly half-a-million folk attend its sequence of concerts, per year.
• The Albert Hall has its own ‘Royal Box’ that seats 20 people. The Monarch & Partner occupy seats 12+13. The Royal Box was bought up by Queen Victoria and left in her Will to her successors – it is the property of The Crown.

• Apparently our late Queen Elizabeth II & Prince Phillip were not particularly big fans of the Albert Hall – they didn’t frequent the place very much – so they used to raffle off their seats in the Royal Box to staff at Buckingham Palace, whenever they received tickets for events.

• The Beatles ‘John Lennon’ famously referenced The Albert Hall in his song ‘A Day in the Life’ from the Beatles 1967 released Sgt Pepper album – where he says:-…….

‘I read the news today oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall
I’d love to turn you on’

• Apparently, the Albert Hall were none too pleased about, what they felt was a derogatory reference about the place – and so objected to the Beatles manager Brian Epstein “in the strongest conceivable terms”.
• In 1969 an attempt to improve the Hall’s acoustics was undertaken when 135 fibre-glass ‘Flying Saucers’ – or – ‘Mushrooms’ (what ever you want to call them) were fixed to the ceiling. These deflectors have been moderated in recent years and now there are only 85 stuck to the ceiling – and they seem to have done the trick.

• Today – as you enter the main ticket office of the Royal Albert Hall – you’re confronted with a massive mural. This work of art has images of all the many hundreds and hundreds of people that have performed at the Albert Hall – and there is room for more to be added.
• Many thousands of folk have ‘trodden the boards’ at the Hall, from all walks of life – and here are minimal examples of some:-
  • Mohammed Ali fought 3 times at the Albert Hall
  • Shirley Bassey has done 45 shows there
  • Sir Winston Churchill did 16 speeches
  • Eric Clapton has played over 200 concerts
  • Albert Einstein delivered a number of lectures
  • Adele has performed some memorable concerts
  • Even the Suffragettes appeared 25
  • Operas / Tennis / Ballet / Boxing – are all regularly performed.

• The Royal Albert Hall has for many years, also been a massive supporter of the ‘Teenage Cancer Trust’ charity who do so much for teenagers suffering from this awful disease. Roger Daltry, lead singer with the iconic rock band The Who, is a long-time patron of the Teenage Cancer Trust – and since 2000 has organised loads of concerts by top artists, at the Albert Hall – raising £millions for the charity.

I first visited the Royal Albert Hall as a 12yr old, way back in 1969 – when the Youth Club I belonged to, arranged an evening out up there to attend a Christian festival type event called “Hope-Help+Hallelujah” – where Cliff Richard was top-of-the-bill.

All our youth club mob were in the standing-only section high up in the gallery – and I can remember looking way down at old Cliff sitting on a stool in the middle of the arena – strumming away on an acoustic guitar, banging out Christian themed songs, whilst us lot were chucking sweets down at the punters below. From memory I think I attended this annual event for the next couple of years.

So – with the ‘Tour’ over, there was just enough time to sink down a couple ‘cheeky’ beers in the Albert Hall’s ‘Kensington Garden Bar’ deep in the bowels of the venue – before taking our seats in the ‘Circle’, for the Cirque du Soleil ‘Alegrian’ performance.

For those that may not know, Cirque du Soleil are a Canadian entertainment company, founded back in 1984. Today they are the largest ‘circus’ in the world – and they’ve performed at the Royal Albert Hall for over 26yrs now.

 

The show was absolutely amazing, it gripped me from the very first minute, right the way through to its end. I can honestly say that I have never seen anything so breathtakingly spectacular before – a fantastic experience – made so in no small way by it being held in this iconic historic London venue.

 

Wasn’t allowed to take photos during the performance, but I managed to grab a few of near the very end, which are added to the ones taken throughout the earlier Albert Hall Tour.

What a magnificent building and venue the Royal Albert Hall is – you can literally ‘feel’ the atmosphere and vibe of it’s history the minute you step foot in it. London is very lucky to have it.

Hope you enjoyed this little story and its accompanying photos.

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Below is the full and extensive gallery of photos taken to support this Albert Hall blog