West End theatre

West End theatre is mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres in and near the West End of London.[1] Along with New York City's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. Seeing a West End show is a common tourist activity in London.[1]

The Palace Theatre, in the City of Westminster, London, built in 1891

The London Palladium in Soho opened in 1910. While the Theatre has a resident show, it also has one off performances such as concerts. Since 1930 it has hosted the Royal Variety Performance 43 times.

There are a total of 39 theatres in the West End, with the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, opened in May 1663, the oldest theatre in London.[2] The Savoy Theatre – built as a showcase for the popular series of comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan – was entirely lit by electricity in 1881.[3]

The Society of London Theatre (SOLT) announced that 2018 was a record year for the capital's theatre industry with attendances topping 15.5 million for the first time since the organization began collecting audience data in 1986. Box office revenues exceeded £765 million.[4] While attendance in 2019 was down 1.4% compared to the previous year, box office revenues reached a record £799 million.[5] Famous screen actors, British and international alike, frequently appear on the London stage.[6]

History

Theatre in London flourished after the English Reformation. The first permanent public playhouse, known as The Theatre, was constructed in 1576 in Shoreditch by James Burbage. It was soon joined by The Curtain. Both are known to have been used by William Shakespeare's company. In 1599, the timber from The Theatre was moved to Southwark, where it was used in building the Globe Theatre in a new theatre district formed beyond the controls of the City corporation. Regarding theatre as sinful, these theatres were closed in 1642 due to the Puritans who would later influence the interregnum of 1649.[7][8]

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Opened in May 1663, it is the oldest theatre in London.[2]

After the Restoration (1660), theatre among other arts exploded, and two companies were licensed to perform, the Duke's Company and the King's Company. Performances were held in converted buildings, such as Lisle's Tennis Court. The first West End theatre, known as Theatre Royal in Bridges Street, was designed by Thomas Killigrew and built on the site of the present Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.[2] It opened on 7 May 1663 and was destroyed by a fire nine years later. It was replaced by a new structure designed by Christopher Wren and renamed the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.[9][10]

Outside the West End, Sadler's Wells Theatre opened in Islington on 3 June 1683. Taking its name from founder Richard Sadler and monastic springs that were discovered on the property,[11][12] it operated as a "Musick House", with performances of opera; as it was not licensed for plays. In the West End, the Theatre Royal Haymarket opened on 29 December 1720 on a site slightly north of its current location, and the Royal Opera House opened in Covent Garden on 7 December 1732.[13]

The Patent theatre companies retained their duopoly on drama well into the 19th century, and all other theatres could perform only musical entertainments. By the early 19th century, however, music hall entertainments became popular, and presenters found a loophole in the restrictions on non-patent theatres in the genre of melodrama. Melodrama did not break the Patent Acts, as it was accompanied by music. Initially, these entertainments were presented in large halls, attached to public houses, but purpose-built theatres began to appear in the East End at Shoreditch and Whitechapel.

Original interior of Savoy Theatre in 1881, the year it became the first public building in the world to be lit entirely by electricity.[14]

The West End theatre district became established with the opening of many small theatres and halls, including the Adelphi in The Strand on 17 November 1806. South of the River Thames, the Old Vic, Waterloo Road, opened on 11 May 1818. The expansion of the West End theatre district gained pace with the Theatres Act 1843, which relaxed the conditions for the performance of plays, and The Strand gained another venue when the Vaudeville opened on 16 April 1870. The next few decades saw the opening of many new theatres in the West End. The Criterion Theatre opened on Piccadilly Circus on 21 March 1874, and in 1881, two more houses appeared: the Savoy Theatre in The Strand, built by Richard D'Oyly Carte specifically to showcase the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, opened on 10 October (the first theatre to be lit by cooler, cleaner electric lights), and five days later the Comedy Theatre opened as the Royal Comedy Theatre on Panton Street in Leicester Square. It abbreviated its name three years later.[10] On 23 December 1886, Alice in Wonderland (the first major production of the Alice books) debuted at the Prince of Wales Theatre. Lewis Carroll attended a performance seven days later.[15] Opened in 1892, the Duke of York's Theatre saw the debut of J. M. Barrie’s play, Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, on 27 December 1904.[16]

One of the most popular playwrights in London in the 1890s, Oscar Wilde premiered his second comedy, A Woman of No Importance, at Haymarket Theatre in April 1893. Opened in 1903, the New Theatre was renamed the Noël Coward Theatre in 2006 in honour of the playwright Noël Coward. Constructed in 1897, Her Majesty's Theatre hosted a number of premieres, including George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion in 1914.[17] The theatre building boom continued until about the First World War.

In 1930, Laurence Olivier had his first important West End success in Noël Coward's Private Lives. A number of other actors made their West End debut prior to the Second World War, including John Gielgud, Alec Guinness and Vivien Leigh. During the 1950s and 1960s, many plays were produced in theatre clubs, to evade the censorship then exercised by the Lord Chamberlain's Office. The Theatres Act 1968 finally abolished censorship of the stage in the United Kingdom.

Theatreland

The Lyceum Theatre, home to Disney's The Lion King.[18]

"Theatreland", London's main theatre district, contains approximately forty venues and is located in and near the heart of the West End of London. It is traditionally defined by the Strand to the south, Oxford Street to the north, Regent Street to the west, and Kingsway to the east, but a few other nearby theatres are also considered "West End" despite being outside the area proper (e.g. The Apollo Victoria Theatre, in Westminster). Prominent theatre streets include Drury Lane, Shaftesbury Avenue and the Strand. The works staged are predominantly musicals, classic and modern straight plays, and comedy performances.[19]

Many theatres in the West End are of late Victorian or Edwardian construction and are privately owned. Many are architecturally impressive, and the largest and best maintained feature grand neo-classical, Romanesque, or Victorian façades and luxurious, detailed interior design and decoration.

Queen's Theatre showing Les Misérables, running in London since October 1985

However, owing to the age of the buildings, leg room is often cramped, and audience facilities such as bars and toilets are often much smaller than in modern theatres. The protected status of the buildings and their confined urban locations, combined with financial constraints, make it very difficult to make substantial improvements to the level of comfort offered. In 2003, the Theatres Trust estimated that an investment of £250 million over the following 15 years was required for modernisation,[20] and stated that 60% of theatres had seats from which the stage was not fully visible.[21] The theatre owners unsuccessfully requested tax concessions to help them meet the costs.

The restored facade of the Dominion Theatre, as seen in 2017

From 2004 onwards there were several incidents of falling plasterwork, or performances being cancelled because of urgent building repairs being required. These events culminated in the partial collapse of the ceiling of the Apollo Theatre in December 2013.[22] Of these earlier incidents, only one led to people being hurt,[23] but at the Apollo Theatre 76 people needed medical treatment for their injuries.[24] The refurbishment of the Dominion Theatre was completed in 2017 with the unveiling of a new double-sided LED screen, the largest and highest resolution projecting screen on the exterior of a West End theatre.[25]

In 2012, gross sales of £529,787,692 were up 0.27% and attendances also increased 0.56% to 13,992,773-year-on-year[26] In 2013, sales again rose this time by 11% to £585,506,455,[27] with attendances rising to 14,587,276.[28] This was despite slightly fewer performances occurring in 2013.[29]

On 16 March 2020, following government advice due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all theatres in the West End were closed until further notice.[30]

Long-running shows

The St Martin's Theatre, home to The Mousetrap, the world's longest-running play.

The length of West End shows depend on ticket sales. Produced by Cameron Mackintosh, the longest-running musical in West End history is Les Misérables, which has been running in London since October 1985. It overtook Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats, which closed in 2002 after running for 8,949 performances and 21 years, as the longest-running West End musical of all time on 9 October 2006. Other long-runners include Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera and Willy Russell's Blood Brothers which have also subsequently overtaken Cats. However the non-musical Agatha Christie play The Mousetrap is the longest-running production in the world, and has been performed continuously since 1952.[31]

List of West End theatres

• If no show is currently running, the play listed is the next show planned (dates marked with an *).
• If the next show planned is not announced, the applicable columns are left blank (however due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, many theatres have numerous postponed upcoming shows which the opening dates will be confirmed. See Upcoming productions below for more detail)

Theatre	Address	Capacity	Owner/Operator	Current production	Classification	Opening date	Closing date
Adelphi Theatre	Strand	1436	LW Theatres / Nederlander Organization	Back to the Future[32]	Musical	2 June 2021*	Open-ended
Aldwych Theatre	Aldwych	1176	Nederlander Organization	Tina—The Tina Turner Musical	Musical	17 April 2018	Open-ended
Ambassadors Theatre	West Street	444	Ambassador Theatre Group
Apollo Theatre	Shaftesbury Avenue	775	Nimax Theatres	Everybody's Talking About Jamie	Musical	22 November 2017	Open-ended
Apollo Victoria Theatre	Wilton Road	2384	Ambassador Theatre Group	Wicked	Musical	27 September 2006	Open-ended
Arts Theatre	Great Newport Street	350	JJ Goodman Ltd.	Six	Musical	17 January 2019	Open-ended
Cambridge Theatre	Earlham Street	1283	LW Theatres	Matilda the Musical	Musical	24 November 2011	Open-ended
Criterion Theatre	Jermyn Street	593	Criterion Theatre Trust
Dominion Theatre	Tottenham Court Road	2069	Nederlander Organization	The Prince of Egypt	Musical	25 February 2020	Open-ended
Duchess Theatre	Catherine Street	494	Nimax Theatres	The Play That Goes Wrong	Play	14 September 2014	Open-ended
Duke of York's Theatre	St. Martin's Lane	650	Ambassador Theatre Group	The Ocean at the End of the Lane	Play	4 November 2021*	12 February 2022
Fortune Theatre	Russell Street	432	Ambassador Theatre Group	The Woman in Black	Play	7 June 1989	Open-ended
Garrick Theatre	Charing Cross Road	718	Nimax Theatres	Here Come the Boys[33]	Dance	10 March 2021*	16 May 2021
Gielgud Theatre	Shaftesbury Avenue	986	Delfont Mackintosh Theatres	To Kill a Mockingbird[34]	Play	17 June 2021*	Open-ended
Gillian Lynne Theatre	Drury Lane	1108	LW Theatres	Cinderella[35]	Musical	19 May 2021*	Open-ended
Harold Pinter Theatre	Panton Street	796	Ambassador Theatre Group	Good	Play	27 April 2021*	17 July 2021
Her Majesty's Theatre	Haymarket	1160	LW Theatres	The Phantom of the Opera	Musical	9 October 1986	Open-ended
London Palladium	Argyll Street	2286	LW Theatres	Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat	Musical	15 July 2021*	5 September 2021
Lyceum Theatre	Wellington Street	2100	Ambassador Theatre Group	The Lion King	Musical	19 October 1999	Open-ended
Lyric Theatre	Shaftesbury Avenue	967	Nimax Theatres	Six	Musical	5 December 2020	18 April 2021
Noël Coward Theatre	St. Martin's Lane	872	Delfont Mackintosh Theatres	Dear Evan Hansen	Musical	19 November 2019	Open-ended
Novello Theatre	Aldwych	1143	Delfont Mackintosh Theatres	Mamma Mia!	Musical	6 April 1999	Open-ended
Palace Theatre	Shaftesbury Avenue	1400	Nimax Theatres	Harry Potter and the Cursed Child	Play	25 July 2016	Open-ended
Phoenix Theatre	Charing Cross Road	1012	Ambassador Theatre Group	Come from Away	Musical	18 February 2019	Open-ended
Piccadilly Theatre	Denman Street	1200	Ambassador Theatre Group	Pretty Woman: The Musical	Musical	1 March 2020	5 September 2021
Playhouse Theatre	Craven Street	786	Ambassador Theatre Group	Good	Play	27 April 2021*	17 July 2021
Prince Edward Theatre	Old Compton Street	1650	Delfont Mackintosh Theatres	Mary Poppins	Musical	13 November 2019	Open-ended
Prince of Wales Theatre	Coventry Street	1160	Delfont Mackintosh Theatres	The Book of Mormon	Musical	21 March 2013	Open-ended
Savoy Theatre	Strand	1158	Ambassador Theatre Group
Shaftesbury Theatre	Shaftesbury Avenue	1400	The Theatre of Comedy Company	& Juliet	Musical	20 November 2019	Open-ended
Sondheim Theatre	Shaftesbury Avenue	1074	Delfont Mackintosh Theatres	Les Misérables	Musical	16 January 2020	Open-ended
St Martin's Theatre	West Street	550	Stephen Waley-Cohen	The Mousetrap	Play	25 November 1952	Open-ended
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane	Catherine Street	2196	LW Theatres	Frozen[36]	Musical	TBA*	Open-ended
Theatre Royal Haymarket	Haymarket	888	First Access Entertainment	Only Fools and Horses The Musical	Musical	19 February 2019	Open-ended
Trafalgar Theatre	Whitehall	400	Trafalgar Entertainment Group	Jersey Boys[37]	Musical	21 April 2021*	Open-ended
Vaudeville Theatre	Strand	690	Nimax Theatres	Magic Goes Wrong	Play	8 January 2020	Open-ended
Victoria Palace Theatre	Victoria Street	1517	Delfont Mackintosh Theatres	Hamilton	Musical	21 December 2017	Open-ended
Wyndham's Theatre	St. Martin's Court	750	Delfont Mackintosh Theatres	Leopoldstadt	Play	12 February 2020	4 September 2021

Upcoming productions

The following have been announced as future West End productions. The theatre in which they will run is either not yet known or currently occupied by another show.

Production	Theatre	Opening	Classification	Ref
Baby Reindeer	Ambassadors Theatre	Postponed	Play
The Boy in the Dress	Savoy Theatre	Postponed	Musical	[38]
The Doctor	Duke of York's Theatre	2021	Play	[39]
A Doll's House	Playhouse Theatre	Postponed	Play	[40]
The Drifters Girl	Garrick Theatre	25 November 2021	Musical	[41]
Get Up, Stand Up!	Lyric Theatre	6 February 2021	Musical	[42]
Hello, Dolly!	Adelphi Theatre	2022	Musical	[43]
Moulin Rouge!	Piccadilly Theatre	Late 2021	Musical	[44]
Shook	Trafalgar Studios	TBA	Play	[45]
Sunday in the Park with George	Savoy Theatre	2021	Musical	[46]
Mean Girls	TBA	Spring 2021	Musical	[47]
The Pillowman	Duke of York's Theatre	2021	Play	[48]
The Watsons	Harold Pinter Theatre	Postponed	Play	[49]

London's non-commercial theatres

The exterior of the Old Vic

The term "West End theatre" is generally used to refer specifically to commercial productions in Theatreland. However, the leading non-commercial theatres in London enjoy great artistic prestige. These include the Royal National Theatre, the Barbican Centre, Shakespeare's Globe (including the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse), the Old Vic, Royal Court Theatre, Sadler's Wells Theatre, and the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. These theatres stage a high proportion of straight drama, Shakespeare, other classic plays and premieres of new plays by leading playwrights. Successful productions from the non-commercial theatres sometimes transfer to one of the commercial West End houses for an extended run.

The Royal Opera House is widely regarded as one of the greatest opera houses in the world, comparable with the Palais Garnier, La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera House. Commonly known simply as Covent Garden due to its location, it is home to the Royal Opera, Royal Ballet and a resident symphony orchestra, and hosts guest performances from other leading opera, ballet and performance companies from around the world.

Likewise, the London Coliseum is the resident home to the English National Opera. The theatre is also the London base for performances by the English National Ballet, who perform regular seasons throughout the year when not on tour.

The Peacock Theatre is located on the edge of the Theatreland area. Now owned by the London School of Economics and Political Science, it is used in the evenings for dance performances by Sadler's Wells, who manage the theatre on behalf of the school.

Other London theatres

There are a great number of theatre productions in London outside the West End. Much of this is known as fringe theatre which is the equivalent of Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway theatre in New York. Among these are the Bush Theatre and the Donmar Warehouse. Fringe venues range from well-equipped small theatres to rooms above pubs, and the performances range from classic plays, to cabaret, to plays in the languages of London's ethnic minorities. The performers range from emerging young professionals to amateurs.

There are many theatres located throughout Greater London, such as the Lyric Hammersmith, Theatre Royal Stratford East, Rose Theatre, Kingston, New Wimbledon Theatre, the Rudolf Steiner Theatre in Westminster, the Ashcroft Theatre in Croydon, Secombe Theatre in Sutton and the Churchill Theatre in Bromley.

Awards

There are a number of annual awards for outstanding achievements in London theatre:

• Laurence Olivier Awards
• Evening Standard Theatre Awards
• WhatsOnStage Awards
• Critics' Circle Theatre Awards
• National Dance Awards
• West End Cares Awards
• West End Frame Awards

See also

• Culture of London
• List of London venues
• Great West End Theatres
• List of former theatres in London

Notes

1. Christopher Innes, "West End" in The Cambridge Guide to Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 1194–1195, ISBN 0-521-43437-8
2. "London's 10 oldest theatres". The Telegraph. Retrieved 6 April 2020.
3. "Shakespeare's indoor Globe to glow by candlelight". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 April 2020.
4. "2018 BOX OFFICE FIGURES RELEASED BY SOCIETY OF LONDON THEATRE AND UK THEATRE". Society of London Theatre. March 2019.
5. "New Figures Reveal West End Theatre is Thriving". London Box Office. February 2020.
6. "Stars on stage". London theatre. Retrieved 23 June 2015
7. Jane Milling; Peter Thomson (23 November 2004). The Cambridge History of British Theatre. Cambridge University Press. p. 439. ISBN 978-0-521-65040-3.
8. "From pandemics to puritans: when theatre shut down through history and how it recovered". The Stage.co.uk. Retrieved 17 December 2020.
9. "London's Vibrant West End Theatre SCENE". TheatreHistory.com. Retrieved 17 January 2010.
10. "London pub trivia – Ten oldest London theatres". Timeout London. 12 December 2006. Archived from the original on 3 December 2008. Retrieved 17 January 2010.
11. "London's Lost Tea-Gardens: I". Story of London. Archived from the original on 27 August 2009. Retrieved 17 January 2010.
12. "Sadler's Wells Theatre". LondonTown.com. Retrieved 17 January 2010.
13. "Royal Opera House". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 1 June 2020.
14. "The Savoy Theatre", The Times, 3 October 1881
15. Carroll, Lewis (1979). The Letters of Lewis Carroll, Volumes 1–2. Oxford University Press. p. 657. Dec. 30th.—To London with M—, and took her to “Alice in Wonderland,” Mr. Savile Clarke's play at the Prince of Wales's Theatre... as a whole, the play seems a success.
16. "Mr Barrie's New Play. A Christmas Fairy Tale". The Glasgow Herald. 28 December 1904. p. 7. Retrieved 20 August 2020.
17. Herbert Beerbohm Tree. Archived 2 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine PeoplePlayUK, accessed 12 February 2008.
18. "1.8 million views of Lion King". Theatre Views Newsletter. October 2011. Retrieved 9 May 2012.
19. Michael Billington "Snooty about musicals? Sheila Hancock should change her tune", The Guardian. (blog), 16 March 2001
20. Giles Worsley "Falling Houses", The Daily Telegraph, 6 December 2003
21. Michael Billington "Crisis in the West End", The Guardian, 2 August 2007
22. Sarah Jane Griffiths "How safe is London's Theatreland?", BBC News, 20 December 2013
23. At the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 2004, 15 people were injured when part of the ceiling fell on to them; see the Sarah Jane Griffiths article above.
24. Alice Philipson, and Andrew Marszal "Apollo Theatre ceiling in London's West End collapses: scores injured", The Daily Telegraph, 20 December
25. "The Dominion Theatre, home to An American in Paris, completes £6M refurbishment". mr.carlwoodward.com. 7 August 2017. Retrieved 6 April 2020.
26. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 June 2013. Retrieved 29 January 2013.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
27. Singh, Anita (29 January 2014). "West End audiences hit record high thanks to Twitter". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
28. "West End Theatre Ticket Sales at Record High". Sky (United Kingdom). 29 January 2014. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
29. "West End Has Another Record Year, With Increases in Both Attendance and Revenue". Playbill. 29 January 2014. Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
30. "Theatre closures to help slow the spread of Coronavirus". UK Theatre. 16 March 2020. Retrieved 28 April 2020.
31. "Agatha Christie's: The Mousetrap". St. Martin's Theatre. Archived from the original on 26 June 2012. Retrieved 27 November 2019. Here you will find all the information you need about the longest running show, of any kind, in the world.
32. "Back to the Future The Musical to open in the West End in May 2021". londontheatre.co.uk. London Theatre. 8 September 2020. Retrieved 8 September 2020.
33. "'Here Come The Boys' postpones West End opening". londontheatre.co.uk. London Theatre. 18 December 2020. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
34. "Bartlett Sher's To Kill A Mockingbird to transfer to West End in summer 2020". londontheatre.co.uk. London Theatre. 31 October 2019. Retrieved 31 October 2019.
35. Wiegand, Chris (10 January 2020). "Killing Eve's Emerald Fennell and Andrew Lloyd Webber create new Cinderella". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 11 January 2020.
36. "Disney's Frozen musical to reopen Theatre Royal Drury Lane". LW Theatres. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
37. "'Jersey Boys' to return to the West End in 2021". londontheatre.co.uk. London Theatre. 30 October 2020. Retrieved 30 October 2020.
38. "RSC's artistic director Gregory Doran on navigating the Covid crisis, converting the theatre into a cinema and more | WhatsOnStage". www.whatsonstage.com. Retrieved 20 August 2020.
39. "The Doctor, starring Juliet Stevenson, postponed to 2021". londontheatre.co.uk. London Theatre. 13 May 2020. Retrieved 18 June 2020.
40. "Jessica Chastain to make West End debut in Jamie Lloyd's A Doll's House". londontheatre.co.uk. London Theatre. 25 October 2019. Retrieved 25 October 2019.
41. "Beverley Knight to star in new musical The Drifters Girl in the West End". londontheatre.co.uk. London Theatre. 1 November 2019. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
42. "Bob Marley musical Get Up, Stand Up! to premiere in West End in 2021". londontheatre.co.uk. London Theatre. 17 February 2020. Retrieved 18 February 2020.
43. "Hello, Dolly! starring Imelda Staunton postponed to 2022". londontheatre.co.uk. London Theatre. 29 May 2020. Retrieved 18 June 2020.
44. "Moulin Rouge delays West End opening to late 2021". londontheatre.co.uk. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
45. "Samuel Bailey's Shook to transfer to Trafalgar Studios". londontheatre.co.uk. London Theatre. 23 January 2020. Retrieved 24 January 2020.
46. "Sunday in the Park with George postponed until further notice".
47. "Mean Girls to Transfer to West End in 2021 and be Adapted into A Film".
48. "The Pillowman starring Steve Pemberton postponed to next year". londontheatre.co.uk. London Theatre. Retrieved 5 June 2020.
49. "Laura Wade's Jane Austen play The Watsons to transfer to Harold Pinter Theatre". londontheatre.co.uk. London Theatre. 12 November 2019. Retrieved 19 November 2019.

External links

• Society of London Theatre – trade body for the London theatre industry
• London's West End Theatres Information and archive material on London's historic West End Theatres.