His Majesty's Theatre rises green domed and granite grey above Aberdeen's Union Terrace, one of three buildings that give this corner of the city its nickname: Education, Salvation and Damnation, after the library, the church and the theatre standing shoulder to shoulder.

Opened in 1906, it seats one thousand four hundred people, the largest theatre in Aberdeen. One Scottish comedian summed up performing there memorably, comparing the experience to doing a gig inside a wedding cake.

The theatre stands as testament to Aberdeen's granite building boom, when Victorian and Edwardian architects turned local stone into something close to sculpture, catching the light on sunny days and looking gloomier once the rain sets in.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tour of Union Street uses the theatre to unpack why Aberdeen earned its Granite City nickname, tracing the street's ambitions from a bankrupt council in 1817 to the domed grandeur visitors pass today.