The Gaiety Theatre opened on 16 July 1900 to a design by the celebrated theatre architect Frank Matcham, and is regarded as one of his finest surviving works. The site had first been developed in 1893 as a theatre called The Marina, designed by John Rennison for a consortium including tramway pioneer Thomas Lightfoot; the consortium went bankrupt within six months and the building was bought at auction and renamed The Pavilion. In December 1899 the Palace and Derby Castle Company commissioned Matcham to remodel the narrow shell of The Pavilion into an opera house and theatre, which reopened as the Gaiety and could seat nearly 2,000 people. It enjoyed particular success in the Edwardian era up to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, and the theatre has since undergone extensive restoration works to return it to its original condition.