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Evans's Grand Hotel

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Venue Type & Location

Tavern

Overview

  • Address: 43 King Street, Covent Garden. For a current map, Click Here. For an historical map showing the venue (in addition to the one excerpted at right), Click Here.

  • Alternate Names: Evans’s Supper Rooms.

  • Performance Space Description: Information about this venue has not yet been compiled; however, some sense of the performance space may be gleaned by following the links at right. In particular:

  • See the 'Bibliographic Sources' link for a provisional list of venue-relevant resources (both primary and secondary). Wherever possible (i.e. when the pertinent text is relatively short and/or easily condensed) this material has been transcribed, and appears beneath the appropriate bibliographic citation.

  • See the 'Events at venue' link for a listing of blackface/minstrelsy-related events that took place in this performance space (with attached bibliographic references).

    Beth Marquis

    • Troupes at Evans's Grand Hotel

    Film Affiliated people Film Type # of event(s)
    Cowell, Sam Vocal Entertainment Definite Cowell, Sam
    Sharp, J.W. Sharp, J.W. Vocal Entertainment Definite Sharp, J.W.

    Events at Evans's Grand Hotel

    Event Date Venue Location Film
    Variety - London, London (city-county) Sharp, J.W.
    Variety - London, London (city-county) Cowell, Sam

    Bibliographic Sources

    View a list of abbreviations.

    • London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1868


      “EVANS'S, Covent Garden […] This noble room, designed by Finch Hill, was built in 1855, upon the garden in the rear of Evans's Hotel. It is in bold, handsome style, with a coved ceiling, richly ornamented. […]” (608).
    • London: The Library Association, 1970
      p82.
    • Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1974
      pp19-20.

      Quotes Edmund Yates. Recollections and Experiences Vol. 1 (1884): "‘Evan’s late Joy’s’ – the pun was intentional – had a reputation for higher-class singing than its rivals, but the principal attraction to its all-male audiences was the opportunity to add their own obscene interpretations to popular songs of the day. Gradually, however, a change took place in the style of entertainment. Ribald songs were banished, and instead the choruses were sung by choirs of young boys whose sweet fresh voices were heard with charming effect in the old glees and madrigals. The little room was too small for the audience; it was pulled down [in 1855] and a vast concert-room built on its site with a stage where the singers stood…” (19).
    • Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1981
      pp74-5.
    • London: Pavilion, 1986


      Quotes Christopher Pulling's They Were Singing:The “Cave of harmony in [Thackeray’s] The Newcomes was probably a composite picture of Evans’s and the Coal Hole, just as his Back Kitchen in Pendennis has been identified with the Cyder Cellars” (4).

      Also notes that no women were permitted during the years covered by this database, and that there was no admission fee (9).

      Further information on pp2-5.