The Melodramatic Elephant in the Haunted Castle

The Melodramatic Elephant in the Haunted Castle 

9-20 December at The Art Academy Gallery

Opening hours: 

Saturday and Sunday 12.00-17.00 

Monday to Friday 15.00-19.00

This multi-media exhibition follows on from a highly acclaimed play about the history of the Coronet Theatre and how performance and art has always been at the heart of London’s Elephant and Castle. The Coronet will be closing its doors for the final time on New Year’s Day after 147 years. This exhibition poignantly dramatizes the intertwined fate of this building as a theatre, cinema and contemporary music venue with the Victorian actress once associated with it.

Marie Henderson (1842-1882) was a melodramatic star of the Victorian stage and the Elephant and Castle theatre’s first female manager. She was reported as having gone mad when the theatre burnt down in 1878 and she lost all her costumes. Centre stage in the exhibition will be an installation of burnt clothing poignantly evoking her mental anguish and the catastrophic loss to her business. Archival displays about the history of the Coronet and the tradition of melodrama will be complimented by a series of large scale drawings and a 50 minute programme of short films that includes:

• Extracts from the recently staged play performed by the People's Company

• Mirror Mirror, short film of Constantine Gras evoking the spirit of Marie Henderson https://vimeo.com/229141460 

• short silent and horror film 

• Coronet architectural film made by digital artist, Sandra Crisp 

• Southwark Pensioners reminiscence at the Coronet  

• Interview with Professor Jim Davis and Dr Janice Norwood about the legacy of melodrama 

The Melodramatic Elephant in the Haunted Castle is a unique collaboration between the People’s Company of Southwark Playhouse, Theatre director, John Whelan and multi- media artist, Constantine Gras, who has curated the exhibition. It also uniquely involved the input of Southwark residents who shared reminiscence of the Coronet and created set designs that are on display as theatre models.

This is an Arts Council England funded project supported by Southwark Playhouse and The Coronet. The exhibition involved the support of The Art Academy and CoolTan Arts.