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The Ladykillers
Gielgud Theatre London W1D 6AR
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The Ladykillers Tickets
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| There are 3 licensed bars. No steps to the Foyer bar from the wheelchair space (along a side corridor). Moveable seats. Foyer bar 3 steps up from the foyer. Stalls bar 4 steps down from the back of the stalls, with fixed seats. |
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| Infra-red system with headsets. Guide dogs are permitted inside the auditorium. Alternatively, staff are happy to dog-sit for 2 guide dogs. Entrance to the auditorium is through the EXIT door on Rupert Street. Ask a member of staff to open this for you. Venue suitable for scooters. Seats B1 and 21 can be removed to provide 2 spaces for wheelchair users. You cannot see a small part of the stage. Adapted toilet near the bar. |
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| Nearest parking is :- Spaces for Blue Badge holders in Archer Street. MasterPark at Poland Street and China Town. NCP at Wardour Street, Newport Place, Denman Street, Lexington Street. |
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| London Underground at Piccadilly Circus is the nearest Tube Station. |
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| National Rail closest to The Gielgud is Charing Cross, Victoria and Waterloo not too far by tube, taxi or bus. |
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| London Transport buses numbers 14, 19 & 38 |
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Gielgud Theatre Shaftesbury Avenue, London, W1D 6AR Click Here for Gielgud Theatre Map Gielgud Theatre Seating Plan |
Theatre |
The Gielgud Theatre The theatre opened on December 27th, 1906 as the Hicks Theatre in honour of actor, manager and playwright Seymour Hicks, for whom it was built. Designed by W.G.R. Sprague in Louis XVI style, the theatre originally had 970 seats. The theatre was constructed as a pair with the Queen's Theatre, which opened in 1907 on the adjacent street corner. The first production at the theatre was a musical called The Beauty of Bath by Hicks and Cosmo Hamilton. My Darling, another Hicks musical, followed in 1907, with the Straus operetta followin, A Waltz Dream in 1908. An amazing event occurred midway through the run of the theatre's next major work, The Dashing Little Duke (1909), which was produced by Hicks. Hicks' wife, Ellaline Terriss, played the title role (a woman playing a man). When she missed several performances due to illness, Hicks stepped into the role. In 1909, the American impresario Charles Frohman became sole manager of the theatre and renamed it The Globe Theatre and reopened with His Borrowed Plumes written by Winston Churchill's mother, Lady Randolph Churchill. Another "Globe Theatre", situated on Newcastle Street, had been demolished in 1902 to make way for the Aldwych, and so the name became useable. A number of celebrated productions followed which included Call It A Day by Dodie Smith which opened in 1935 and ran for 509 performances, and was considered very successful for this period. Terence Frisby's There's a Girl in My Soup, opening in 1966, running for 1,064 performances at the theatre, a record that was not surpassed until Andrew Lloyd Webber's production of the Olivier Award-winning comedy Daisy Pulls It Off by Densie Deegan opened in April 1983 to run for 1,180 performances, the theatre's longest run. In 1987 Peter Shaffer's play Lettice and Lovage was a hit with Maggie Smith and Margaret Tyzack, running for two years. The Globe was the home of a resident theatre cat named Beerbohm. The tabby's portrait still hangs in the corridor near the stalls. Beerbohm appeared on stage at least once in every production, impelling the actors to improvise. He always decided to occupy certain actors' dressing rooms while they were at the theatre, including Peter Bowles, Michael Gambon and Penelope Keith. Beerbohm was mentioned several times on Desert Island Discs, and he was the only cat to have received a front page obituary in the theatrical publication, The Stage. He died in March 1995 at the age of 20. Refurbished in 1987, with extensive work on the gold leaf in the auditorium, the theatre is particularly renowned for its beautiful circular Regency staircase, oval gallery and tower. The theatre has presented several Alan Ayckbourn premieres, including 1990's Man of the Moment. More recently, Oscar Wilde's classic comedy, An Ideal Husband (1992) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (2004) saw notable revivals. In 1994, in anticipation of the 1997 opening of a reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on the South Bank by Sam Wanamaker, the theatre was renamed in honour of British actor John Gielgud. In 2003, Sir Cameron Mackintosh announced plans to refurbish the Gielgud, including a joint entrance foyer, with the adjacent Queen's Theatre, facing on to Shaftesbury Avenue. Mackintosh's Delfont Mackintosh Theatres took over operational control of the Gielgud from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Theatres in 2006. The Delfont Mackintosh group also consists of the Noel Coward Theatre, Novello Theatre, Prince Edward Theatre, Prince of Wales Theatre, Queen's Theatre, and Wyndham's Theatre. Work on the frontage of the theatre started in March 2007 and the interior restoration, including reinstating the boxes at the back of the dress circle, was completed in January 2008. |
