Another story from the ‘Well I Never Knew That!’ file from our bygone entertainment correspondent Angus Young.
While New York has Broadway and London has Shaftesbury Avenue, we’ve got Anlaby Road. A century ago it was Hull’s entertainment hotspot with a cluster of cinemas, theatres and dance halls near the city centre, football and cricket grounds and Hull Fair every October. The cinemas and theatres might have closed or disappeared but the MKM Stadium has continued the tradition of live sport, the Fair is still going strong and potential future stars of stage and screen now attend the Northern Academy of Performing Arts in the old Hull Art School building. However, Anlaby Road’s history of live entertainment goes back much further than the arrival of moving pictures.
In 1864 a circular wooden building with seating for 2,500 people was constructed on open land near where the junction with Great Thornton Street is today. Originally a temporary structure, Hengler’s Grand Cirque Variete staged daily performances over a three-month season from October to December. The circus took its name from its showman owner Charles Hengler, the son of a famous tightrope walker and equestrian. A trained musician, Hengler would become an accomplished horse trainer and equestrian performer in his own right before taking on a new role as acting manager of a new circus business set up by his brother Edward.
Two years later Charles launched his own circus, buying a struggling Manchester-based company and turning into a hugely successful one. As well as touring with tented shows, he also started building a series of wooden amphitheatres around the country where more spectacular shows could be staged with equestrian acts usually dominating the bill. Like its contemporaries, Hengler’s Anlaby Road circus was built by local contractors and featured gas lighting, comfortable seating and, most important of all, a solid roof.
Hengler used his horses to re-enact military parades celebrating victories across the British Empire as well as popular stories, including a pantomime version of highwayman Dick Turpin’s famous ride to York. His company also staged elaborate aquatic shows, filling the circus ring with gallons of water before driving horses through it or launching fleets of small boats. Traditional circus acts such as clowns and jugglers would also appear while the venue also hosted shows by singing minstrels, public meetings and even religious events.
The circus returned regularly to Hull and was such a success that in 1887 Hengler decided to create a permanent venue in the town as he had already done in places like Glasgow, Birmingham and Bristol. A new wooden circus was built on the same spot and was later rebuilt in 1898 in brick and stone with a grand entrance under a portico supported by a colonnade of slender columns. Now known as Hengler’s Cirque, it hosted the largest indoor hall in Hull and was, to all intents and purposes, a theatre.
The impressive scale of the building was captured by Hull artist F.S. Smith in a contemporary sketch of Anlaby Road which recently featured in a recent exhibition at the Ferens Art Gallery commemorating the centenary of his death.
However, the golden age of the Victorian circus was coming to an end and competition from the more popular Palace Theatre which stood next door saw a decline in its fortunes. The Cirque struggled to compete and underwent a series of reinventions under new owners. In 1912 it hosted a small film studio producing films of local events and two years later started hosting boxing matches.
In 1918 it was re-named the Lyric Theatre after another facelift and billed as “the finished and most up-to-date concert party theatre in the Kingdom”. The Lyric lasted until 1925 when it closed for a year before re-opening again as the grandly-named Palais de Dance. Five years later the curtain came down for the final time and the building was subsequently demolished.