The centrepiece of the Cheapside development was the Wood Green Empire, a 3,000-capacity theatre designed by Frank Matcham. The Empire soon became one of London's leading entertainment venues, hosting acts such as Marie Lloyd, Frankie Vaughan and Shirley Bassey. The Empire is best known as the theatre in which magician Chung Ling Soo (William Ellsworth Robinson) was fatally shot in the chest on 23 March 1918, when a theatrical pistol used in a bullet catch demonstration malfunctioned.[53]