Alexandra Palace: Who Has Graced Its Stage?

Music was always a central attraction at the Palace. The Grand Willis organ in the Great Hall, a sibling instrument to the Royal Albert Hall “Voice of Jupiter”, attracted thousands of visitors to large performances with orchestras and choirs. The Theatre at Ally Pally hosted opera, pantomime as well as music hall acts including Nelly Power, who was the first performer of music hall standard The Boy I Love is Up in the Gallery. Popular classical music programmes featured Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Elgar while Handel’s Messiah was performed again and again over the century and famously in the 1970s under Yehudi Menuhin. In a ‘world’s first’, the BBC launched the newly created television service from Alexandra Palace in November 1936. Adele Dixon performed a new song composed for the opening night called ‘Television’. Hyam Greenbaum conducted the newly formed BBC Television Orchestra, and band leaders Henry Hall and Jack Hylton brought jazz to viewers. Margot Fonteyn regularly danced and Les Ballet Negres, the first all black ballet company performed on the early service. Singer Adelaide Hall became the first live performer to be tele-recorded, allowing television segments to be broadcast as repeats. Alexandra Palace hosted ground breaking All Night Carnivals of Jazz, All Night Festival of Beat Music and in 1964 an All Night Rave headlined by The Rolling Stones. The 1970s saw legendary rock bands Led Zeppelin, The Who, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Grateful Dead, T. Rex and Queen play Alexandra Palace. Ally Pally hosted the Brit Awards and MTV Europe Music Awards, bringing Madonna, Take That, the Pet Shop Boys, The Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage, George Michael and a duet from Elton John and Ru Paul.