“Undoubtedly the most famous of the town’s theatres was the ‘Surrey Music Hall’ in West Bar. One of the first of its kind in the United Kingdom, it combined a theatre, ballroom and menagerie. It was certainly the most beautiful and was considered second only to Covent Garden in London. The splendid ballroom was surrounded by enormous mirrors and magnificent pictures and it possessed a fine decorated ceiling. The owner of this remarkable building was Thomas Youdan, always known as Tommy. The theatre specialized in melodrama and Tommy believed that everything on the stage should be as realistic as possible. Unfortunately on the 25th March 1865 when a play called ‘The Streets of London’ was in progress, a scene where the houses were to catch fire became too realistic and the stage scenery caught alight. The fire spread round the theatre and all the building, including the ballroom and menagerie, was gutted. From 1865 to 1880 the ruins of this once magnificent theatre remained, until they were cleared away to make room for other buildings.

“The remarkable Tommy Youdan was undismayed by his thirty thousand pound loss and he decided to open again at new premises called the ‘Royal Alexandra Theatre’ in Blonk Street. Always called by the Sheffield townsfolk the ‘Old Alex’, this theatre had a stage that projected over the River Don. Though the programmes often consisted of opera, the singers would keep the audiences happy by inserting popular songs between the arias and encouraging all to join in the choruses. After Tommy Youdan died, the ‘Old Alex’ passed through various hands and was finally closed in 1914, to be demolished the following year. Another theatre that suffered the same fate as the Surrey Music Hall was the Alhambra, in Union Street, which was burnt down in 1822. (236-9)