Walk into the Prince of Wales on St Mary Street and it is obvious you are in an old theatre: the drinkers sit in what was the stalls, under a horseshoe of balconies and boxes. The building opened in 1878 as the Theatre Royal, became the Prince of Wales Theatre, and saw performers such as Richard Burton, Noël Coward and Laurence Olivier according to the Wetherspoon pub history. It later became a cinema, then a nightclub, and has been a pub since 1999.
The Spooky Cardiff self-guided ghost walk makes it a stop, with a story about a young actress. During a performance, it says, she collapsed on stage, and she died backstage. She has not left. People sitting near the old stage area sometimes feel a tap on the shoulder with nobody near them, and staff say they have seen her drifting along the balcony. Her passing is marked by a faint scent of roses and face powder.
The walk describes the building as the old "New Theatre Royal", which is not quite right: Cardiff's New Theatre is a separate, still-working theatre on Park Place, which has its own reputation for an older female ghost. No name or date has been found for the actress, and this appears to be a recent account. It is included as a single report attached to a real and atmospheric building.
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