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 to build the
Globe Theatre in a new theatre district beyond the controls of the City corporation. The
Puritans, who regarded theatre as sinful,
closed them in 1642. On 24 January 1643, actors protested the ban by writing a pamphlet, "The Actors remonstrance or complaint for the silencing of their profession, and banishment from their severall play-houses". . Opened in May 1663, it is the oldest theatre in London. After
the Restoration (1660), Puritan legislation was declared null and void, and theatre (among other arts) exploded. 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. One of the first actresses on the stage,
Nell Gwyn became a star of restoration comedy. 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, 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.
John Gay's ballad opera ''
The Beggar's Opera'' ran for 62 performances in 1728, and held the record for London's longest run for nearly a century. It has been called "the most popular play of the eighteenth century." Another musical show,
Tom and Jerry, or Life in London (1821), was the first London production to reach
100 consecutive performances.
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". In 1823,
Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein, the first adaptation of
Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein, was staged at the
English Opera House (renamed the Lyceum Theatre in 1834) by
Richard Brinsley Peake, who also introduced the line "It lives!". Shelley attended a performance on 29 August 1823 and following the success of the play she wrote, "lo & behold! I found myself famous!". 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. According to the British Library, "Unlicensed premises relied on silent or musically-accompanied action, physical theatre, animals and acrobatics, and thus both melodrama and the Victorian
pantomime were developed." Initially, these entertainments were presented in large halls, attached to
public houses, but purpose-built theatres began to appear in the
East End, such as the
Pavilion Theatre in
Whitechapel. The comic theatrical genre the
harlequinade was also popular among London audiences. 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. in 1881, the year it was fitted with the incandescent light bulb developed by Sir
Joseph Swan to become the first public building in the world to be lit entirely by electricity. 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 Adelphi hosted
A Christmas Carol; or, Past, Present, and Future in 1844, a play adapted from the novella
A Christmas Carol by
Charles Dickens—who came to several stage rehearsals during which he made suggestions—with his book published weeks earlier in December 1843. play at the Savoy in 1881 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 in October (the first theatre and public building to be lit by electric lights, with
The Times recording, "the success of the new mode of illumination was complete, and its importance for the development of scenic art can scarcely be overrated"), and five days later the
Comedy Theatre opened as the Royal Comedy Theatre on Panton Street in
Leicester Square. The
Palace Theatre opened in 1891. 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.
Oscar Wilde, one of the most popular playwrights in London in the 1890s, 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. In 1878,
Ellen Terry joined
Henry Irving's company as his leading lady, and for more than the next two decades she was considered the leading Shakespearean and comic actress in Britain. 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. The theatre was renamed the
Noël Coward Theatre in 2006 after the playwright
Noël Coward. Constructed in 1897,
Her Majesty's Theatre hosted a number of premieres, including
George Bernard Shaw's
Pygmalion in 1914 with
Mrs Patrick Campbell originating the role of Cockney flower girl
Eliza Doolittle. 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,
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. 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 (playing
Spamalot, an adaptation of
Monty Python and the Holy Grail) was opened in 1891. "Theatreland", London's main theatre district, contains approximately 40 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. However, a few other nearby theatres are also considered "West End" despite being outside the area proper; an example is 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. 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. Theatre names, such as Empire, Lyceum, Palladium, Alhambra and Hippodrome, emphasised a grandeur of scale. 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.
Delfont Mackintosh Theatres, which owns eight London theatres, refurbished all of their theatres beginning with the
Prince Edward Theatre in 1992, with the group's owner, Sir
Cameron Mackintosh, later producing the stage musical
Mary Poppins (having acquired the rights from the book's author
P. L. Travers) in the same theatre. In 2003, the
Theatres Trust estimated that an investment of £250 million over the following 15 years was required for modernisation, and stated that 60% of theatres had seats from which the stage was not fully visible. (showing
Billy Elliot in 2012) was refurbished in 2017. Of these earlier incidents, only one led to people being hurt, but at the Apollo 76 people needed medical treatment for their injuries. A number of West End theatres have undergone refurbishments, including the
Victoria Palace Theatre following the run of
Billy Elliot in 2016. The
Dominion Theatre refurbishment 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. 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. In 2013, sales again rose this time by 11% to £585,506,455, with attendances rising to 14,587,276. This was despite slightly fewer performances occurring in 2013. On 16 March 2020, following government advice due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, all theatres in the West End were closed until further notice. Theatres in London were allowed to re-open (with social distancing) on 17 May 2021, with full capacity permitted from 19 July. Opening in October 2022,
@sohoplace is the first new West End theatre in 50 years. ==Long-running shows==