Final Curtain

I went only once to the long-demolished Hippodrome theatre in Norwich, largely because in those days, in 1959, it was not the place to be seen in. Full of plaster statues and cupids and decorated boxes it may have been, it was still long past its best. The shine and showbiz glitz had gone, and it had become an empty, shabby place which was having to resort to showing films. I had gone to see Gone With the Wind, and there were only two or three other people there. A door somewhere in the bowels of the building banged regularly in the draught all the way through.
Despite its state, a residue of nostalgia for the honourable old Hippodrome hung around for a time rekindled, no doubt, by a decision by the City Fathers to bestow their blessings on the Theatre Royal (as the city's preferred theatre) rather than the Hippodrome.
When I joined the Norfolk & Norwich Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society as a back-of-the-chorus baritone of exceeding modest talent, and completely unable to read music, the debate was still quite heated. The older generation in the society loved the Hippo, and could not understand why it had to be consigned to history's dustbin. They had staged Gilbert & Sullivan there for years, for goodness sake. A wonderful place.
Others shook their heads and muttered darkly. There were not enough dressing rooms, which meant they had to park a line of caravans outside in the street, and there was no space to bring in scenery. They would never be able to stage opera or musicals there, and because the Hippo was built up on all sides, there was little or no chance of expansion.
So the Theatre Royal it was, a plain utilitarian building (also showing films when I first arrived in Norwich), later modernised and refurbished to give it a touch of glamour. As for the Hippo, it disappeared under the wrecker's ball many decades ago, and despite its cupids and history and gilded tiddlybits, the space it once occupied is now filled by the St Giles multi-storey car park.
Do I miss it? No really, not in a sense that it might have become the city's No.1 theatre, because it couldn't. Despite the tradition, no elbow room, you see. The Theatre Royal was always a much better long term bet, and so it has proved itself to be.
The loss of the cupids and the gilded tiddlybits is another matter, of course. Very sad, and equally as sad as the loss of even more plaster and gilded bits when the old Savoy cinema in Prince of Wales Road was refurbished.
Mind you, I once knew a man who had a selection of buxom cupids from the Savoy in his garage. But that's another story.