A dad-of three collapsed and died at a lost Liverpool theatre after "spotting his ex wife on stage."
The Rotunda Theatre, which made Scotland Road world famous, stood on the land from 1869 until it was destroyed by the Blitz bombing in 1940. The Liverpool ECHO previously reported how originally a public house, the venue could seat 1,790 people in its heyday.
Older generations may still have memories of the popular theatre, that welcomed thousands of families through its doors. But the lost venue also has a dark past.
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It was that one local dad-of-three suddenly died in front of his daughters, whom he had taken to see a pantomime in 1905. Author Chris Wood, from Northumberland, recently unearthed the tragic tale whilst writing his second book, Death in the Theatre, combining his interests of the theatre and more "morbid" tales.
Chris told the ECHO: "When I researched it, I found literally hundreds of stories. I could have written the book three or four times over.
"This one was quite a strange one, the one in the Rotunda. A chap named Alfred Williams lived on Humber Street in Walton, he was a barman.
"He had three children to his first wife who was called Margaret. They split up and he remarried a younger woman. They actually split up after a little while and I think Alfred really missed her and hadn't seen her for a while.
"One night he took his three kids to the pantomime in early January as the Rotunda was showing Aladdin. He was sat there with his three kids at the front of the pit which was at the bottom.
"Witness account said he was really enjoying the performance, one quote said he was apparently one of the most 'appreciative spectators’ in the whole theatre. But then towards the end of the second act he suddenly changed and his eyes suddenly became fixated on one of the chorus girls who was on stage."
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Newspaper reports at the time, which Chris has researched and included in his book, claim Alfred began to turn pale and panic when he spotted a familiar face on stage. He then stood up shouting "that's my wife" whilst the performance was taking place.
Chris said: "He was getting himself horrendously in a state of distress. Then he just collapsed in front of his kids, the theatre attendants raised the lights and removed him and took him to one of the landing areas.
"They were able to get a local doctor out very quickly to give him medical assistance. But when they got there he was dead."
A tragedy, Chris said the death was also a strange case and stood out to him amongst hundreds others. He said: "The subsequent inquest, this is where it gets a bit bizarre.
"The inquest revealed he had heart problems and they thought it was brought on by the fact he wasn't expecting to see his ex wife on stage, that it really became too much for him and that’s what they thought had killed him.
"He was buried in Kirkdale cemetery on January 13, a few days after he died. Later on in the inquest the most tragic thing about it was the ex wife was summoned to identify him and say a little bit about him.
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"When she was there she told the inquest that at no time had she ever been on a theatre stage. It wasn't her, but apparently she looked really, really alike to this ex wife of his. On the death certificate they changed it to ‘death was brought about by a tragic case of misrecognition.’
"For his three kids, to have seen that, I think it was a very very sad case. You think if he hadn't have went to the theatre that night to do something nice for his kids, would he have lasted a bit longer. It was so different to other cases I had in there."
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On September 21, 1940, the theatre was completely destroyed by the Blitz. The site of the theatre was later cleared and was subsequently laid out with grass and small trees.
Chris' non-fiction book, Death in the Theatre, contains lesser known cases where people have come to an untimely end in British theatres. To read more stories like this, the book is available for preorder now through the Pen and Sword website and Amazon, and will be out in bookshops from May.
To keep up to date with Chris' work, you can follow him on Twitter and Instagram with the same handle @hewritesatnight
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