Gielgud Theatre London Tickets, News & Reviews

35-37 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, W1D 6AR
Gielgud Theatre Seating Plan

Gielgud Theatre Box Office Opening Hours:
Gielgud Theatre Box Office Telephone: 0844 482 5130
Monday - Saturday: 10am - 7.45pm

Venue and Travel Information
Nearest Tube: Piccadilly Circus (approximately. 250m), Charing Cross (approx. 550m)
Nearest Tube Lines: Bakerloo, Piccadilly
Directions from nearest tube:  Take Shaftesbury Avenue along the side where the famous illuminated signs are. The theatre is on the left after about 100 metres.
Nearest Railway Station: Charing Cross (approximately. 550m)
Bus Numbers: (Shaftesbury Avenue) 14, 19, 38
Car Park: Brewer Street (3 minutes)
Within Congestion Zone: Yes
Venue Facilities:  Air-conditioned, Bar, Disabled toilets, Infrared hearing loop, Toilets, Wheelchair accessible

The Gielgud Theatre London Brief History
The theatre opened on 27th December 1906 as the Hicks Theatre after actor, manager and playwright Seymour Hicks, for whom it was built. Designed by W G R Sprague in the style of Louis XVI, the theatre had 970 seats. The theatre was constructed as one of two with the Queen’s Theatre, which subsequently opened in 1907 on the adjacent street corner.

The first performance at the theatre was a musical called The Beauty of Bath by Hicks and Cosmo Hamilton. Another Hicks musical My Darling, followed in 1907, with the Straus operetta after that and then A Waltz Dream in 1908. During the run of the theatre’s next major work, The Dashing Little Duke (1909), Hicks’ wife Ellaline Terriss, played the title role (a woman playing a man), and when she missed several performances due to illness, Hicks stepped forward into the role.

In 1909, the American impresario Charles Frohman became manager of the theatre and renamed it The Globe Theatre and then 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 construction of the Aldwych, and so the name became available. Several celebrated productions followed which included Call It A Day by Dodie Smith which opened in 1935 and ran for 509 performances, and was considered extremely 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 passed until Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Olivier Award-winning comedy Daisy Pulls It Off by Densie Deegan which opened in April 1983 to run for 1,180 performances, which remains the theatre’s longest run. In 1987 Peter Shaffer’s play Lettice and Lovage was a huge hit with Maggie Smith and Margaret Tyzack starring and running for two years. The Globe was at one time the home of a resident theatre cat named Beerbohm. The cat’s portrait hangs in the corridor near the stalls. Beerbohm appeared on stage at least once during each production, causing the actors to improvise. The cat occupied 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 a front page obituary in the theatrical publication, The Stage. Beerbohm died in March 1995 at the grand old age of 20.

The theatre was refurbished in 1987, which included extensive work on the gold leaf in the auditorium. The theatre is renowned for its beautiful circular Regency staircase, oval gallery and tower. The theatre has presented a number of Alan Ayckbourn premieres, including 1990′s Man of the Moment. Subsequently, Oscar Wilde’s classic comedy, An Ideal Husband (1992) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (2004) which saw notable revivals.

In 1994, in preparation for 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, looking out on to Shaftesbury Avenue. Mackintosh’s Delfont Mackintosh Theatres took control of the Gielgud from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Theatre Group in 2006.

Work on the front 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.