It was built for the producer Henry Leslie, who financed it from the profits of the light opera hit, Dorothy, which he transferred from its original venue to open the new theatre on 17 December 1888.

Later musical shows included Irma La Douce (1958), Robert and Elizabeth (1964), John, Paul, George, Ringo ... and Bert (1974), Blood Brothers (1983), Five Guys Named Moe (1990) and Thriller – Live (2009).

Stars appearing at the theatre included, in the early years, Marie Tempest, Johnston Forbes-Robertson, Eleonora Duse, Ellen Terry and Tallulah Bankhead, and in the mid-20th-century Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson and Vivien Leigh.

[18] A contemporary description of the new theatre said, "The façade is of the Renaissance style in red brick and Portland stone, divided in the centre and two wings, each surmounted with a high pitched gable with recessed arcades" and "The frame of the proscenium is of brown and white alabaster: the sides of the stalls and pit are lined with walnut and sycamore panelling, with handsome carved mouldings".

[24] Sedger had an early success with his production of Edmond Audran's La cigale, in an English adaptation by F. C. Burnand with additional music by Ivan Caryll; it ran for 423 performances from October 1890.

[25] Apart from a short season by the celebrated Italian actress Eleonora Duse in her first appearance in Britain,[26] Sedger continued with musical works: The Mountebanks by W. S. Gilbert and Alfred Cellier (1892),[27] Incognita (1892), an adaptation of Charles Lecocq's Le coeur et la main;[28] The Magic Opal (1893) by Arthur Law and Isaac Albéniz;[29] The Golden Web (1893) by Stephenson, Frederick Corder and Arthur Goring Thomas;[30] and Little Christopher Columbus (1893) by G. R. Sims, Cecil Raleigh and Caryll.

[39] Musical comedy returned to the Lyric at the end of Forbes-Robertson's season, with The Medal and the Maid (1903), by Owen Hall and Sidney Jones, with Ada Reeve and Ruth Vincent, and The Duchess of Dantzig (1903), by Henry Hamilton and Caryll, with Evie Greene and Courtice Pounds.

[42] From 1906 to 1910 Lewis Waller was based at the Lyric, in plays ranging from Shakespeare to romantic costume drama and classic comedy in The Rivals with Kate Cutler as Lydia and Lottie Venne as Mrs Malaprop.

For a while, musical productions were not seen at the Lyric, and non-musical drama prevailed, including On Trial, an unusual melodrama that opened with the end of the story and worked backwards to the beginning.

Those of the early 1930s included Eugene O'Neill's six-hour-long Strange Interlude (1931);[51] Dodie Smith's Autumn Crocus (1931), with Fay Compton, Martita Hunt and Jessica Tandy, which ran for 317 performances;[52] J.

B. Priestley's Dangerous Corner (1932) with Flora Robson;[53] Rose Franken's Another Language (1932) with Edna Best and Herbert Marshall; and Rachel Crothers's When Ladies Meet (1933).

[55] The Lunts returned in 1938 with a transfer of their Broadway production of Amphitryon 38, S. N. Behrman's adaptation of a French original by Jean Giraudoux; this was followed by Charles Morgan's The Flashing Stream, which ran for 201 performances with Godfrey Tearle and Margaret Rawlings.

[55] The war years were a lean period for the Lyric, with only few substantial runs such as The Nutmeg Tree by Margery Sharp, starring Yvonne Arnaud, which ran for 269 performances in 1941–42.

[65] The Lyric began the decade with The Battle of Shrivings by Peter Shaffer (1970), described by a reviewer as "the biggest flop of his career";[66] it starred John Gielgud as a celibate vegetarian philosopher.

[69] Alec Guinness played the lead role of Dr Wicksteed, the "medical philosopher and furtive lecher", in Alan Bennett's 1973 comedy Habeas Corpus.

[68][71] The production was followed by an import from the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, which ran at the Lyric for 418 performances:[72] Willy Russell's Beatles musical, John, Paul, George, Ringo ... and Bert, with a cast largely new to the West End, including Anthony Sher, Bernard Hill, Trevor Eve and Barbara Dickson.

The company, headed by Joan Plowright, with John Moffatt, Peter McEnery and Helen Mirren, gave Chekhov's The Seagull in repertory with The Bed Before Yesterday, a new play by the 89-year-old Ben Travers, author of the Aldwych farces of the 1920s and 1930s.

[79] In 1978 Plowright returned to the Lyric, starring with Colin Blakely and Patricia Hayes in Franco Zeffirelli's production of Eduardo De Filippo's Filumena.

[81] Richard Briers and Paul Eddington starred in the comedy Middle Age Spread in early 1980;[82] Rodney Bewes and Francis Matthews took over in June before the play moved to the Apollo Theatre.

[84] In 1982 Briers and Peter Egan in Shaw's Arms and the Man were followed by Glenda Jackson and Georgina Hale in a new play, Summit Conference,[85] which ran from April to October.

[87][88] The theatre then reverted to non-musical drama with Hugh Whitemore's Pack of Lies with Judi Dench and Michael Williams in the leading roles; it ran for nearly a year.

The first four were Burn This, starring John Malkovich (1990); Cameron Mackintosh's production of Five Guys Named Moe, which ran from 1990 to 1995; a musical revival Ain't Misbehavin' (1995); and Leo McKern in Hobson's Choice from the Chichester Festival Theatre.

This was followed in the same year by a stage adaptation of Coward's 1945 film Brief Encounter with Jenny Seagrove and Christopher Cazenove and then a revival of Eugene O'Neill's drama Long Day's Journey Into Night, starring Jessica Lange.

[95] In 2002 the "jolly hockey sticks" schoolgirl comedy Daisy Pulls it Off ran for three months,[96] Ian McKellen and Frances de la Tour starred in a revival of Strindberg's The Dance of Death in 2003.

[98] Thriller – Live, a Michael Jackson tribute revue, opened at the Lyric in January 2009 and, despite being described by The Times as "about as thrilling as a bowl of cold custard",[99] and by The Daily Telegraph as, in parts, "hagiographical twaddle",[100] was still running when the London theatres closed in March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A revival of Aspects of Love, starring Michael Ball, opened in May 2023 for a limited 6 month run but closed early in August 2023 after receiving negative reviews.