Following the death of Harry Rickards in 1911, Hugh D. McIntosh formed a syndicate that bought the Tivoli circuit from the entrepreneur's heirs. The Sydney Tivoli was leased, however, as Rickards's will demanded that it remain in his family until the last of his children had died. Re-branded Harry Rickards' Tivoli Theatres, the new organisation began operating in 1912, with McIntosh as its general manager. Despite having no previous experience in variety theatre entertainment, McIntosh had nevertheless developed his own entrepreneurial skills as a sports promoter. One of his first changes was to rename Melbourne's Grand Opera House the Tivoli. In Adelaide, the old Tivoli was turned into a cinema and renamed the Star Theatre, with the company leasing in 1913 a new venue, Rickards' Tivoli Theatre, in its place.
Although McIntosh and his board of directors initially maintained Rickards's philosophy of importing the world's leading stars, they soon made changes to the typical Tivoli vaudeville programme, producing many lavish musical comedies and Follies-style revues. While the Tivoli organisation was not the first to stage a revue in Australia (see Come Over Here), it quickly established itself as the leading purveyor of such entertainment (see note below). In this respect, the company was forced to make the switch to revue during the First World War, when it became increasingly difficult to bring overseas acts to the country.
A little over a year after taking over the Tivoli operations, McIntosh raised the ire of Australia's two leading variety industry journals, The Theatre Magazine and Australian Variety, when he took up the position of managing director of the Sunday Times and began using that newspaper to highlight the Tivoli's shows at the expense of other local variety operations. (This may also explain why Tivoli advertisements, and hence reviews, disappeared from the Sydney Morning Herald for almost two and a half years, beginning January 1913). Matters came to a head in early 1916, when McIntosh instigated legal action against Australian Variety owner Martin C. Brennan over an article published in the American Billboard magazine, which he believed Brennan had written. The article supposedly gave an inaccurate account of McIntosh's financial stability. Although the issue was resolved in early 1916, both Australian Variety and the Theatre continued their attacks on McIntosh and the quality of the Tivoli programmes up until at least the end of 1917 (Djubal, 'What Oh Tonight,' pp.94-96).
The policy of staging musical comedies and revues continued after the war, with the Tivoli producing a number of significant works, including The Lilac Domino, C. J. De Garis and Reginald Stoneham's musical F. F. F., and the first Australian production of Oscar Asche's Chu Chin Chow. Frank Van Straten records in the Companion to Theatre in Australia, however, that Chu Chin Chow was a financial disaster for the Tivoli. 'With characteristic extravagance, ' writes Van Straten, 'McIntosh brought camels from central Australia to Melbourne... [The production] opened on Boxing Day in 1920, when Melbourne was crippled by a transport strike. McIntosh unsuccessfully tried to deliver patrons to the theatre privately by bus' but was eventually forced to sell the production to J. C. Williamson's due to the financial losses incurred (p.348).
In 1921, McIntosh handed over control of the company to Harry G. Musgrove, but retained a seat on the board along with a significant parcel of shares. Although the company continued to trade as Harry Rickards Tivoli Theatres Ltd, its advertised billing generally indicated that the direction was by (or in association with) Harry G. Musgrove Theatres. Musgrove initially attempted to exhibit pictures in the Sydney and Melbourne Tivolis, but this venture was less than successful, due largely to their unsuitability as cinemas. He then returned to staging vaudeville with the assistance of his cousin Jack Musgrove. Some four years later, J. C. Williamson's took control of the circuit, operating it as Tivoli Celebrity Vaudeville. While the organisation trading as Harry Rickards' Tivoli Theatres Ltd continued to retain ownership of most of its original theatres up until the late 1920s, it was no longer involved in the production of entertainment. The company sold the Sydney Tivoli to a London syndicate in 1929.
