Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, with mural of Ira Aldridge

Image: © A J Paxton Taken: 3 Aug 2021

The Belgrade Theatre was completed in 1958, to a design by the City Architect Donald Gibson, and incorporated part of a gift of timber from Coventry's twin city Belgrade, at that time the capital of Yugoslavia. It was the first civic theatre in Britain, having been conceived, designed and funded by the city council, and marked a break with the earlier conception of theatre in Britain as an essentially commercial undertaking. On seeing it, the critic Kenneth Tynan wrote, ‘Enter most theatres and you enter the gilded, cupidaceous past. Enter this one, and you enter the future.’ The theatre was extended and refurbished by Stanton Williams Architects in 2005-7. See 'Building of the month: March 2018 - Belgrade Theatre, Coventry', by Alistair Fair, writing for the Twentieth Century Society at https://c20society.org.uk/building-of-the-month/belgrade-theatre-coventry#) . The mural depicts the African-American actor and slavery abolitionist Ira Aldridge in the role of Othello, based on a painting of 1830 by Henry Perronet Briggs, which is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery. Aldridge visited Coventry in 1828, when he was 21, and made such an impression that he was offered the position of manager of the Coventry Theatre, which he held for several months. The mural is the work of Neequaye Dsane, who signs as Dreph, and was commissioned as part of the UK City of Culture 2021 events in Coventry; see the City of Culture website here https://coventry2021.co.uk/news/in-paint-we-trust-ira-aldridge-mural-at-the-belgrade-theatre/ .

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0