Kinsela's Cabaret Theatre

Theatre-restaurant in Darlinghurst, Sydney, opened 4 September, 1982, seating 240. Built as three-storey draper's shop and offices 1910. Remodelled as funeral parlour 1933. Architect: Bruce Dellit. Converted to restaurant and theatre restaurant 1982 Architects: Michael Davis and Glen Murcutt.

Comedy revue returned to Sydney for about four years in the 1980s at Kinsela's, a theatre-restaurant named after an undertaker. Charles Kinsela leased the ‘Mansion House’ building in 1932 and had the architect Bruce Dellit remodel the ground floor in angular art-deco style. In 1981 Kinsela sold the building. In a clever and sympathetic conversion the ground floor became a restaurant, with the lofty chapel, a superb example of Art Deco, preserved as required by a heritage order. A stair rose to bar, dressing rooms and toilets on the first floor, and the theatre-restaurant on the second. The audience sat at tables stepped up slightlv toward the rear of an almost square room, facing a narrow open stage stretching the length of one wall.  

The Sydney Theatre Company prepared the first cabarets, which began with The Stripper, and other revues or variety in late-night second shows. On 23 November 1982 Four Lady Bowlers in a Golden Holden brought back John McKellar and Lance Mulcahy, the writer and the composer of many Phillip Street Revues some 25 years before. Max Gillies was among the performers in the new wave of revue. The restaurant licence, requiring food to be consumed with alcoholic drink, created problems and after four years the proprietors closed Kinsela's and sold the property. The new owners changed to a hotel licence, converted the chapel into a bar and reopened in 1988, with mainly musical shows. There was a major production Forbidden Broadway, in mid-1991.