A report on West End theatre

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.
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Opened in May 1663, it is the oldest theatre in London.
Original interior of Savoy Theatre in 1881, the year it became the first public building in the world to be lit entirely by electricity.
The Lyceum Theatre, home to Disney's The Lion King.
Queen's Theatre showing Les Misérables, running in London since October 1985
The restored facade of the Dominion Theatre, as seen in 2017
The St Martin's Theatre, home to The Mousetrap, the world's longest-running play.
The exterior of the Old Vic
The Royal Court Theatre. Upstairs is used as an experimental space for new projects—The Rocky Horror Show premiered here in 1973.
West End theatres on Shaftesbury Avenue in 2016
Gilbert and Sullivan play at the Savoy in 1881
Victoria Palace Theatre (showing Billy Elliot in 2012) was refurbished in 2017.

Mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres in and near the West End of London.

- West End theatre
The Palace Theatre, in the City of Westminster, London, built in 1891

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A performance of Macbeth (2018)

Play (theatre)

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Work of drama, usually consisting mostly of dialogue between characters and intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading.

Work of drama, usually consisting mostly of dialogue between characters and intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading.

A performance of Macbeth (2018)
An actress performs a play in front of 2 statues from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. Room 21, the British Museum, London
An actor and actress performing a play in front of the Nereid Monument, Room 17, the British Museum, London

Plays are performed at a variety of levels, from London's West End and Broadway in New York City – which are the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world – to regional theatre, to community theatre, as well as university or school productions.

Willy Russell

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English dramatist, lyricist and composer.

English dramatist, lyricist and composer.

Commissioned by the Liverpool Everyman, it ran for a (then) unprecedented eight weeks before transferring to the West End where it ran for over a year, winning the Evening Standard and London Theatre Critics awards for the best musical of 1974.

Special Rehearsal Edition cover

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

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2016 British two-part play written by Jack Thorne based on an original story by J. K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Thorne.

2016 British two-part play written by Jack Thorne based on an original story by J. K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Thorne.

Special Rehearsal Edition cover
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Lyric Theatre, New York, in July 2019.
Promotional poster
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne, Australia, in July 2022
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the TBS Akasaka ACT Theater, Tokyo, in July 2022.

Its cast was similar to that of the first year in the West End, with returning actors Anthony Boyle, Sam Clemmett, Noma Dumezweni, Poppy Miller, Jamie Parker, Alex Price, and Paul Thornley.

Leicester Square in July 2012, following redevelopment

Leicester Square

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Pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England.

Pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England.

Leicester Square in July 2012, following redevelopment
Leicester Square in 1750, looking north towards Leicester House, then one of the largest houses in London.
Leicester Square overlooking the Alhambra Theatre in 1874
Leicester Square in 1880, looking north east
Panorama showing the Lego Store and M&M's World
The Shakespeare fountain and statue
Charlie Chaplin statue
The TKTS booth in Leicester Square is the official place to purchase cheap theatre tickets in the West End besides being synonymous with London film premieres.
The Odeon, Leicester Square
Mr. Bean statue in the square as part of the Scenes in the Square sculpture trail.
Leicester Square looking north-west towards Swiss Court. The Lego store is visible to the left.
The Odeon Leicester Square

Leicester Square is the centre of London's cinema land, and one of the signs marking the Square bears the legend "Theatreland".

Title page, 1911 UK edition

Peter and Wendy

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Work by J. M. Barrie, in the form of a 1904 play and a 1911 novel.

Work by J. M. Barrie, in the form of a 1904 play and a 1911 novel.

Title page, 1911 UK edition
J. M. Barrie c. 1895
1904 programme for original play at the Duke of York's Theatre, London
Illustration of Peter Pan playing the pipes in Neverland by F. D. Bedford from the first edition
Wendy Darling by Oliver Herford, "The Peter Pan Alphabet", Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1907.

The original stage production took place at the Duke of York's Theatre in London's West End on 27 December 1904.

Peacock Theatre in 2017

Peacock Theatre

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Peacock Theatre in 2017
Oscar Hammerstein's London Opera House

The Peacock Theatre (previously the Royalty Theatre) is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster, located in Portugal Street, near Aldwych.

Cover of the 1898 edition

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

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1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll.

1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll.

Cover of the 1898 edition
Page from the manuscript of Alice's Adventures Under Ground, 1864
The White Rabbit
The Cheshire Cat
Alice trying to play croquet with a Flamingo
Mad Tea Party by Charles Robinson. Theophilus Carter has been suggested as a model for The Hatter.
Three cards painting the white rose tree red to cover it up from the Queen of Hearts
Alice by John Tenniel, 1865
Red-cloth cover, as requested by Carroll, of the 1865 edition.
Alice in Wonderland by George Dunlop Leslie, 1879
Halloween costumes of Alice and the Queen of Hearts, 2015
Maidie Andrews as Alice on the West End stage, c. 1903
Production of Alice in Wonderland by the Kansas City Ballet in 2013
Mad Tea Party. Theophilus Carter, an eccentric furniture dealer from Oxford, has been suggested as a model for The Hatter

The first full major production of 'Alice' books during Lewis Carroll's lifetime was Alice in Wonderland, an 1886 musical play in London's West End by Henry Savile Clark (book) and Walter Slaughter (music), which played at the Prince of Wales Theatre.

Gallery of famous 17th-century Puritan theologians: Thomas Gouge, William Bridge, Thomas Manton, John Flavel, Richard Sibbes, Stephen Charnock, William Bates, John Owen, John Howe and Richard Baxter

Puritans

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The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant.

The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant.

Gallery of famous 17th-century Puritan theologians: Thomas Gouge, William Bridge, Thomas Manton, John Flavel, Richard Sibbes, Stephen Charnock, William Bates, John Owen, John Howe and Richard Baxter
The Westminster Assembly, which saw disputes on Church polity in England (Victorian history painting by John Rogers Herbert).
Interior of the Old Ship Church, a Puritan meetinghouse in Hingham, Massachusetts. Puritans were Calvinists, so their churches were unadorned and plain.
Death's head, Granary Burial Ground. A typical example of early Funerary art in Puritan New England
Polemical popular print with a Catalogue of Sects, 1647.
The Snake in the Grass or Satan Transform'd to an Angel of Light, title page engraved by Richard Gaywood, ca. 1660
Pilgrims Going to Church by George Henry Boughton (1867)
Cotton Mather, influential New England Puritan minister, portrait by Peter Pelham
1659 public notice in Boston deeming Christmas illegal
Quaker Mary Dyer led to execution on Boston Common, 1 June 1660, by an unknown 19th century artist
Second version of The Puritan, a late 19th-century sculpture by Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland

With the end of Puritan rule and the restoration of Charles II, theatre among other arts exploded, and London's oldest operating theatre, Drury Lane in the West End, opened in 1663.

Performers at the 2013 Brighton Fringe Festival

Fringe theatre

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Theatre that is produced outside of the main theatre institutions, and that is often small-scale and non-traditional in style or subject matter.

Theatre that is produced outside of the main theatre institutions, and that is often small-scale and non-traditional in style or subject matter.

Performers at the 2013 Brighton Fringe Festival

The term came into use in the late 1950s, and the show Beyond the Fringe premiered in Edinburgh in 1960, before transferring to Broadway and is the West End.

Evening Standard Theatre Awards

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The Evening Standard Theatre Awards, established in 1955, are the oldest theatrical awards ceremony in the United Kingdom.

The Evening Standard Theatre Awards, established in 1955, are the oldest theatrical awards ceremony in the United Kingdom.

They are presented annually for outstanding achievements in London Theatre, and are organised by the Evening Standard newspaper.