Welsh Journals

Jenkins, timber merchants, stated that it would cost £ 700 for repair work). Several parties expressed interest in the site but all thought the price too high. Abortive attempts were made by the Town Council to persuade Mansel to surrender the lease following a request to the Town Clerk to serve notice on the lessees of the theatre over the state of the building and a directive to enforce the covenants of the original lease, forcing the Tontine Society to spend £ 23..10s..0d. on plastering work to the outside of the theatre. The empty theatre occupied a prime site suitable for commercial development. In February 1891, after four years of expensive negotiations by Mansel who sought vainly to improve offers from interested parties, the affairs of the Swansea Tontine Theatre Society were finally wound up; £ 835..8s..2d. was shared by Rotely, Berrington and Mansel, Mansel taking half for his two shares, the others a quarter each.33 At the beginning of the 1890s over £ 1000 was spent by Messrs. Savours and Price in an attempt to revive the theatre's fortunes. The interior decorations were effected by Signor Lacassas, who had worked on the decoration at Madam Patti's Bijou Theatre, with cherubs on the ceiling and gold and chocolate decorations on the gallery, together with substantial structural alterations to improve safety. No definite opening date or management plan had been announced.34 Sadly no revival occurred. The Swansea and South Walian reported in July 1899 that: The very last of the old Temple-street Theatre Royal, Swansea was witnessed by the carting away of the refuse to make room for the fine structure which Messrs Solomon Andrews and Sons of Cardiff, are now busily engaged in erecting .35 The fine structure was to house the original David Evans store. The history of the Theatre Royal may be likened to a drama: a brilliant first act, sharply drawn characters, innumerable sub-plots, tension, intrigue, pathos and the most vital ingredient an unpredictable ending. What more fitting epitaph than All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players. References and Notes 1. Cecil Price. The English Theatre in Wales. (University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1948.) 2. University of Wales, Swansea, Corporation of Swansea Collection, Hall Day Minute Book, 1783-1821. 3. West Glamorgan County Archive Service, SIV Mansel Papers.