Nothing too much trouble

Yesterday on my way to a secondhand bookshop
in the Charing Cross Road,

I took a quick photo of the revolving globe atop the London Coliseum.

Like so much of the Victorian architecture in the city,

it is massive yet invisible, shouting yet silent.

It was only this evening when I uploaded the picture 
that I began to marvel

at the staggering effort and expense that produced such elaborate detailing,

much of it well above eye level.

The English Heritage listing details make an 
intoxicating shopping list of architectural folderols:

The Coliseum Theatre (English National Opera) - II* Grand theatre.

1902-04 by Frank Matcham , originally built for (Sir) Oswald Stoll.

Channelled terracotta facing

exuberant Free Baroque ambitious design

richly decorated interiors
vast and grandiose auditorium

asymmetrical facade
lofty tower 

triple arcaded entrances

polished red granite columns
 voussoirs

finely executed decorative woodwork

2 storeyed voussoired archivolt
arched entrance

elaborately architraved windows

Ionic colonnaded shallow loggia storey
massively bracketed balconies

3 pedimented aedicules
entablature crowning balustrade

 pavilion-tower 
quoin pilasters

 richly embellished caps  
tiled dome with lantern

balconied Venetian window 

elaborate cornice enriched with cartouches,  

Ionic peristyle with figure sculpture at corners 

 balustrade
pedestalledball finial drum with oculi 

stepped dome 

large metal and glass globe
lavish foyer
marble facings

wealth of eclectic classical detail  

Byzantine opulence

squat columns 

Sullivanesque
domed canopies

Ionic-columned pairs of 2 tiered orchestra boxes

pedimented frames surmounted by sculptural groups

lion-drawn chariots

great, semicircular, blocked architrave proscenium arch

cartouche-trophy keystone

elaborated bays
decorated piers

classical relief frieze
massive coupled brackets

cyclorama track

The Theatres of London; Mander and Mitchenson.

and this in more restrained prose from The Era Review 17th December 1904:

From here the tower assumes different outlines, formed by trusses and niches, and the introduction of sculptured lions; the whole is carried up, getting less in diameter as the top is approached,
when the eight figures in the shape of cupids support
a large iron revolving globe,
to which is attached large electric letters spelling 'Coliseum'.

The globe is made to revolve,
and this artistic advertisement can be seen for many miles.

A further novelty in advertising is the electric device along the front,
which gives the nature of the performance taking place
at the time during the evening.

A veranda covers the pavement in front of the principal entrance,
formed of glass and iron, 
a feature being the way in which the glass is curved in shapes,
and the handsome panelled glass in the fascia,
the whole when lighted up by electricity forming
a very attractive feature in St. Martin's Lane.


What self-belief. What chutzpah.