Francis Laidler, the “King” of pantomime died in the Duke of York Home, Bradford, on January 6, 1955. He had been admitted on December 29, at the start of his fifty-third pantomime season and had been seriously ill since.
For the first time in his long career, Mr Laidler had been unable to attend the first performance of his Bradford pantomime “Red Riding Hood” at the Alhambra Theatre on Boxing Day.
In 1914 Mr Laidler was the celebrity who officially opened Yorkshire’s newest variety theatre, the Alhambra, built on a peninsular plot in Victoria Square, opposite the Town Hall.
In the foyer of Bradford’s Alhambra theatre hangs a plaque in memory of Francis Laidler, unveiled by his widow in 1956, the year after his death.
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