When the final curtain fell at Hong Kong’s Lee Theatre
- An icon for generations of Hong Kong performers and audiences, the grandiose venue shut its doors in 1991
- Anita Mui, George Lam and Jenny Tseng performed at its swan song before site was redeveloped by Hysan Development
“Historic theatre to face bulldozer,” ran a South China Morning Post headline on March 11, 1991. The theatre in question was the Lee Theatre, “an historic landmark in Causeway Bay”. It was “set to be taken over for redevelopment” by Hysan Development, which had acquired it for HK$450 million. “The grandiose Lee Theatre was built [in the 1930s] by a British architect as a copy of London’s Haymarket Theatre,” the story continued.
The next day, the Post reported Hysan Development was “anxious to redevelop the site for office and retail space”, but that plans to do so “could be upset by moves to declare it an historic monument”.
Complicating any conservation efforts, the building was privately owned. Archaeologist Solomon Bard explained: “If it was government owned, we could save it, but continuous development is felt to be an important factor in Hongkong’s prosperity.”
“It will be the last ‘picture show’ at the 65-year-old Lee Theatre in Causeway Bay tonight,” ran an August 18 Post article. “Anita Mui, George Lam, a bevy of Miss Hongkongs and Jenny Tseng singing golden oldies will take to the stage of the old opera house before the curtains come down forever […] In its heyday, the Lee played host to entertainers as diverse as Chinese opera diva Mei Lian-fong, British ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn and American singers Paul Anka and Diana Ross.”
“It’s a shame to turn the lights out and shut it down,” Canto-pop singer Frances Yip Lai-yee told the Post. Yip first performed at the Lee Theatre in 1974, and was a compère for its farewell special because she “felt she owed a lot to the theatre”.
“It is part of my early life and it’s nice to say goodbye this way,” she said.
