Sir Alfred Butt, 1st Baronet was a British theatre impresario, Conservative politician and racehorse owner and breeder. During a fourteen-year tenure as manager of London's Palace Theatre, beginning in 1904, Butt built a theatre empire, expanding firstly with the Alhambra Theatre, Glasgow in 1910, followed by the London Victoria Palace a year later, to rival that of Edward Moss and others. He became managing director of several London West End theatres beginning in 1914, including the Adelphi Theatre, the Empire Theatre, the Gaiety Theatre and the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, as well as theatres outside London. He continued as a theatre impresario until 1931.
"The Palace" Butt as caricatured in Vanity Fair, December 1910
Sir Alfred and Lady Butt and son Kenneth, 1925
The Palace Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster in London. Its red-brick facade dominates the west side of Cambridge Circus behind a small plaza near the intersection of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road. The Palace Theatre seats 1,400.
The Palace Theatre
Ivanhoe programme cover from the theatre's first night
Les Misérables played at the Palace Theatre from 1985 to 2004
Singin' in the Rain at the Palace Theatre, London