Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Her Majesty's Theatre


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 00:05, 22 February 2008.

Her Majesty&


I'm nominating this article for featured article because it has been through a tough GA process; and I believe the article meets the criteria and is ready to go through this process. Kbthompson (talk) 14:19, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Nominate and Support Kbthompson (talk) 14:26, 6 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Shouldn't "patent theatre acts" be capitalised?--Docg 18:20, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply It's not capitalised in the linked wiki article, and a quick check shows that it is not capitalised by either Britannica online, or the UK theatre museum. Glamorgan university, do ... my personal opinion is that Acts of parliament should be capitalised, but it's not - it involves the issue of Letters' Patent by the monarch. In order to avoid the issue, I've rephrased the expression. I hope you find the current form acceptable. Kbthompson (talk) 00:59, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Looks fine. I wasn't objecting, just questioning.--Docg 01:04, 7 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment These don't seem to be a reliable sources: .Epbr123 (talk) 15:42, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Replaced with more acceptable sources. Kbthompson (talk) 16:21, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Karanacs (talk) 19:36, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Neutral. This is a decent article.  I don't think the prose is great, but it is better than a lot of articles I've seen at FAC. Karanacs (talk) 15:36, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The prose needs work, and I am concerned that many of the sources are not reliable sources, and much information is not cited.  I have listed a few examples of the prose issues below, but that list is not comprehensive.  Basically, there is a lot of passive voice, a lot of repetition and a lot of very long unwieldy sentences.
 * Lead prose is not very compelling. A good copyedit might help it to reel you in a little more
 * The LEAD has now been reorganized and copy edited. Please take a new look.  -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:31, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Prose issue examples:
 * unnecessary repetition - "theatre has been home to a number of record-setting runs in theatre history, "
 * "The history of the theatre involves a series of struggles for control of its management and ownership, because several parcels of land had to be leased to build and expand it, and these separate leases, with varying mortgages and lease terms, caused ongoing disagreements among the owners and lessees." - very very long sentence. This could be reworded to be clearer
 * "has principally specialised "??? shouldn't this just be "specialised"
 * " The company had performed productions combining spoken dialogue with incidental music, but a taste was growing amongst the nobility for Italian opera, which was completely sung, and the theatre began to present these" - too unwieldy. Could be simpliefied to something along the lines of "Although previous ed productions combined spoken dialogue with incidental music, as the nobility began to clamor for Italian opera, the company began singing all of their dialogue." (my version isn't perfect either)
 * "described as showing " -> why not just "showing"
 * "Following his personal success with Rinaldo, Handel presented a series of over 25 of his operas, performed under his personal direction, by a Royal Academy of Music (known from 1734 as the Opera of the Nobility)[10] formed by subscription from wealthy sponsors, including the Prince Regent, to support Handel's productions at the theatre until 1739" --- ack, what a long, ungainly sentence!! I'm not entirely sure what it is saying.
 * "The two fell out, each planning to wrest control of the venture from the other" clauses don't work well together - did they fall out because they each planned to wrest control or did they each plan to wrest control because they were upset with each other (and fell out may be too colloquial)
 * "Meetings were attempted to reconcile the parties at Carlton House and Bedford House. " - did they attempt to have meetings or attempt to reconcile the parties?
 * More passive voice! "The stage was stormed by the audience" - "The audience stormed the stage" I like this sentence much better now :) Karanacs (talk) 16:32, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * "The Phantom of the Opera had its world première on 9 October 1986 at the theatre,[50] in which Michael Crawford earned an Olivier Award for his performance in the title role. " - Michael Crawford did not win his Olivier at the Theatre
 * "The setting of the fire, in the roof, had been deliberate" - why such passive voice? "The fire had been deliberately set on the roof"
 * All of the above have now been resolved. -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:33, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Need non-breaking spaces between numbers and their qualifiers (such as 4 levels, 1216 seats)
 * Per WP:MOSQUOTE, the callout quotes (with the quotation marks) are generally not encouraged in wikipedia articles. Instead, for the long quotation use block quotes.
 * Need citation for "The theatre provided the first alternative to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and the Lincoln's Inn theatre (forerunner of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden). "
 * Need citation for "The theatre's site is the second oldest such site in London that remains in use."
 * Is this covered by the citation for the next sentence? Karanacs (talk) 16:32, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * All covered by the theatre's entry in Guide to British Theatres 1750-1950 Kbthompson (talk) 19:25, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Need citation for "These three post-interregnum theatres defined the shape and use of modern theatres."
 * Need citation for "At this time only a handful of patent theatres were permitted to perform serious drama in London, and lacking such a permit, the theatre remained associated with opera. "
 * Don't bold "The Queen's Theatre" in the article body. It can be bolded in the lead, but shouldn't be bolded here. (same for The Haymarket Ioera House)
 * See WP:MOSDASH; year ranges should be separated by an unspaced ndash;
 * Doesn't this indicate, rather, that year ranges should be separated by a spaced ndash?
 * It should be spaced if there is a space in the date (for example, January 1, 2008 – January 8, 2008), but if it is separating single years, no space (2005–2008). Karanacs (talk) 16:32, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, done, thanks. -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:43, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * In section "Vanbrugh's theatre: 1705", several of the paragraphs start with From/In and a date. Please try to vary this a bit.
 * Done, thanks. -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:43, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I would remove the years from the history subheadings. They make it appear that the section only covers that year, which is incorrect.
 * Fixed by adding date ranges, thanks. -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:43, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Need a citation for: "At this time only a handful of patent theatres were permitted to perform serious drama in London, and lacking such a permit, the theatre remained associated with opera"
 * "He finally escaped his own creditors upon his election as member of Parliament " - did being a member of Parliament mean you didn't have to pay your debts?
 * Done, thanks. -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:44, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Need citation for "The Italian composer Cesare Pugni, was appointed Her Majesty's Official Composer of Ballet Music from 1843 until 1850, and he composed the bulk of the ballets presented at the theatre"
 * Done, thanks. -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:44, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Need citation for " Pugni remains the most prolific composer of the genre"
 * Quotations of less than 4 lines should be inline rather than offset
 * References are not formatted properly. Many are missing publishers or dates (even books need publisher information!!)
 * Done. Publishers/dates added, and we've formatted to the best of our ability.
 * Books need page numbers
 * These do not appear to be reliable sources:
 * victorianweb.org
 * www.arthurlloyd.co.uk
 * culturevulture.net
 * Done: All refs to culturevulture removed.
 * karadar.com
 * Done: All refs to karadar removed.
 * www.peopleplayuk.org.uk
 * Thank you for taking the time to look into the article and the sources. As ever the intention is to improve the article, nothing else and I thank you for your suggestions.
 * I might say that victorianweb is an acknowledged source on matters of the Victorian era, using mostly primary sources - ie contemporary newspapers; the Arthurlloyd site, again drawers on contemporary sources to provide information on theatre history. In my experience, it is reliable. PeoplePlayUK is the website of the London Theatre museum, maintained by the the Victoria and Albert Museum. If the last is not a reliable source, what is? The majority of cites are covered by paragraph cites of the excellent Survey of London article on the theatre. That has been an extensive source used in paraphrase.
 * Thank you for a useful critique and I'll try to address your issues tomorrow. Kbthompson (talk) 00:53, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the explanation. I understand that it is more difficult to gain information about past eras, but I wonder if it would be possible to source the Arthurlloyd information from somewhere else?  Can that information also be found in newspaper articles or books?  The largest problem with websites is that there is no editorial control, which makes them less reliable than sources that do have editors or fact-checkers involved. Karanacs (talk) 16:32, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi. The Arthurlloyd site is extremely informative and one of the most comprehensive sites on the internet about London theatres, containing numerous original images, quotes from contemporaneous materials and references to both the author's extensive collection of theatre programs and other materials, as well as lots of research. Why do you question its reliability?  BTW, thanks for your excellent review and comments. -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:11, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I've replaced the ArthurLloyd references, but certainly feel as ssilvers that this is a reliable source. It's certainly the best theatre history site I've ever come across. Much of the information comes from contemporary theatre programmes and reviews that are reproduced on the site. Kbthompson (talk) 19:23, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * There are currently only two Arthurlloyd refs left in the article. Please let us know if you doubt their reliability.  -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:36, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I misunderstood your description of "contemporary" as meaning NOW rather than "at the same time the play was performed". In that vein, then, I withdraw my objection to that site. Karanacs (talk) 19:44, 11 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Weak Support As far as I can tell, the prose is good. The only problem is that some paragraphs do not end with references. Juliancolton Talk 22:23, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I went through and there were a couple where text had been shifted around, I've fixed it now. Thanks Kbthompson (talk) 19:28, 11 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Comments on 1a. Needs a run-through by someone new. Much of it is well-written, though. Examples at random:
 * "large scale"—hyphenate. Done.
 * "... Tree. Tree ..." Done.
 * "Tree and the theatre were instrumental"—odd duo. Done.
 * "premières"—does MOS really say to use the diacritic?
 * Typically, in English, where it's a borrowed word from another language, the diacriticals are used. In fact, if it's missing my British-Irish spell checker marks it as an error. Your local mileage may vary ... depending on the size of your gallon? Kbthompson (talk) 20:39, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * "The name of the theatre changes with the gender of the monarch, becoming the King's Theatre in 1714"—Clash of tenses (the present leaks into the second clause). Done.
 * "Most recently, the theatre was known as His Majesty's Theatre from 1901 to 1952"—Since the years are given, why the first two words as well?
 * If you cut the first two words, it would imply that these are the only two times when this happened - We don't want to name all the different periods when this happened in the LEAD. I would leave this one alone, unless you have another suggestion, Tony.  I suppose the sentence could be cut....
 * "current capacity is 1,216 seats, and since 2000 ..."—Can you move the year away from the "1,216"?  Done.
 * "over 25" (twice): it really would be nicer to say "more than 25". Tony   (talk)  11:44, 14 February 2008 (UTC) Done.
 * I took care of the ones above marked Done. Thanks for the comments, Tony!  -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:37, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
 * ... and a thank you for taking the time to read it through, from me. Kbthompson (talk) 20:39, 15 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Support. Interesting, very well written with good illustrations and quotations. (PS. I ran a full spell check). --Graham Colm Talk 21:39, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Support as GA reviewer. It has only improved since then. Wow! Ealdgyth | Talk 03:11, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Support as a significant contributor. -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:34, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment This isn't a reliable source. Ref 33 has a dead link. Epbr123 (talk) 17:05, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * That's currently working, but as a 'fan' site for musicals, perhaps it is not the best source. It essentially covers the same material as the prior BBC source - but is more up to date. Kbthompson (talk) 23:53, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Support Epbr123 (talk) 00:08, 21 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment I’ve struck my oppose, as no image(s) with questionable fair use status are currently being employed. Strike is on condition that questionable FU image(s) return if, and only if, consensus determines FU claim(s) for this article is/are valid.  ЭLСОВВОLД  talk 21:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with leaving that decision to the appropriate forums. Kbthompson (talk) 00:12, 21 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Support for promotion Broadwaygal (talk) 14:40, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Support I've made some small additions and corrections to the text over recent weeks and have been much impressed by the work of the major contributors and the overall quality of the article. --GuillaumeTell (talk) 22:50, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.