Soho


Soho
Category:	Town
Continent:	Europe
Country:	England
City:	London
Locale:	Westminster
Points of interest:	Grand Guignol Theatre

Soho is a neighborhood located in the West End of the borough of Westminster in the Greater London area in England. Although it does not have an formally recognized borders, it occupies an area approximately one square mile in the center of the city, south of Oxford Street and east of Regent Street and north of Leicester Square. Historically, Soho has been known for its venues in the sex industry, including night clubs and other such enterprises.

Soho played a key role in the 1931 horror film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. A locale featured in the movie is Diadem Court, which includes a music hall and a boarding house. The boarding house was run by an elderly woman named Mrs. Hawkins and one of her tenants, Ivy Pearson, worked at the music hall. This became the preferred territory of the evil Mister Hyde, who would patron the music hall and terrorize Ivy Pearson.

Points of Interest[]

Diadem Court: Diadem Court was a small area located in the neighborhood of Soho in London circa the late 19th century and early 20th century. A woman named Mrs. Hawkins owned a boarding house in Diadem Court. A physician named Henry Jekyll rescued a lounge singer named Ivy Pearson from an aggressive patron at Diadem and brought her to her home. Later, Jekyll's alter ego, Edward Hyde, caused no end of trouble for people passing through the court, while he was on his way to either the music hall or the boarding house.

Grand Guignol Theatre: The Grand Guignol Theatre was a stage theatre located in the Soho district of London, England. It was operating during the latter half of the 19th century and primarily showcased plays of twisted and gruesome subject matter; also known as "penny dreadfuls". The production manager of the theatre was an aloof old-world performer named Vincent Brand. Brand hired a homeless deformed man (the Frankenstein Monster) and gave him the name Caliban, after a character from William Shakespeare's The Tempest. He had him work as a stage hand. Two of the theater's main actors was a man named Simon and his girlfriend, Maud Gunnerson.