West End theatre
Taking its name from founder Richard Sadler and monastic springs that were discovered on the property,[19][20] it operated as a "Musick House", with performances of opera; as it was not licensed for plays.
[23] Tom and Jerry's combination of a tour of London interspersed with song and dance, gave rise to numerous similar, loosely constructed entertainments, and "planted the seeds for later musical comedy and revue".
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.
Its most famous performer, Joseph Grimaldi, best known for developing the modern day white-face clown, made his stage debut at Drury Lane in 1780.
Opened in 1892, the Duke of York's Theatre debuted J. M. Barrie's play, Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, on 27 December 1904.
[32] 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 1893.
The subject of widespread public and media interest, Lillie Langtry (an associate of Wilde) made her West End debut in the comedy She Stoops to Conquer in 1881.
[34] Opened in 1903, the New Theatre debuted The Scarlet Pimpernel in 1905, a play that introduced a heroic figure with an alter ego into the public consciousness.
Constructed in 1897, Her Majesty's Theatre hosted a number of premieres, including George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion in 1914.
[37] 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, Vivien Leigh and Rex Harrison; the latter's performance in Terence Rattigan's 1936 comedy French Without Tears at the Criterion Theatre established him a leading light comedian.
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.
Theatre names, such as Empire, Lyceum, Palladium, Alhambra and Hippodrome, emphasised a grandeur of scale.
[41] 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.
[52] On 16 March 2020, following government advice due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all theatres in the West End were closed until further notice.
The longest-running musical in West End history is Les Misérables, produced by Cameron Mackintosh, 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, Willy Russell's Blood Brothers, and Abba jukebox musical Mamma Mia!
[58] Running since 2016, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a two-part play written by Jack Thorne based on an original story by J. K. Rowling, won a record-breaking nine Olivier Awards in 2017.
The term "West End theatre" is generally used to refer specifically to commercial productions in Theatreland.
"[88] Successful productions from the non-commercial theatres sometimes transfer to one of the commercial West End houses for an extended run.
In 1735 its first season of operas, by George Frideric Handel, began and many of his English oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premieres here.
[94][95] London theatres outside the West End also played an important role in the early history of drama schools.
