Entertainment in the Westend of London

The West End is very well thought of for professional theatre shows. Along with Broadway in New York, West End entertainment is often thought to deliver many of the very greatest productions in the world. Seeing a Westend show is very popular entertainment particularly with tourists. Countless theatre shows and in particular hit musicals are performed in the large venues of London's West End. A huge number of people attend a West End theatre show every year. Westend Theatre Breaks are also extremely popular in the United kingdom. Theatre Breaks are frequently booked as a short break treat to celebrate a special occasion. A West End show is the focal entertainment but booked along with a hotel and often restaurant reservations for a special meal.

London's main theatre region consists of about forty theatres and was rebranded by Westminster Council and the Society of London Theatre as "Theatre Land". It is situated in the middle of the West End of Central London and is traditionally defined by Oxford Street to the North, The Strand to the South, Regent Street to the West and Kingsway to the East. Prominent theatre streets are Drury Lane, Shaftesbury Avenue plus The Strand. The majority of the shows are musicals, classic plays and comedy performances.

London's West End entertainment region started to be established with the opening of numerous small theatres around 1806. The expansion of the Westend entertainment area gained pace with the Theatres Act 1843 that relaxed the conditions for the performance of plays. In the decades that followed, numerous new venues were opened. That pattern continued until the first world war. For the duration of the 50s and 60s, many plays were produced in theatre clubs so as to dodge the censorship then exercised by the Lord Chamberlain's Office. However, the Theatres Act 1968 at last abolished censorship of the stage.

Most of the theatres in the Westend are of late Victorian or Edwardian construction and the majority are privately owned. The bulk of them have great character and the biggest and best maintained feature grand neo-classical, Romanesque or Victorian façades and luxurious detailed interior design and decoration. On the other hand, leg space is often cramped and audience amenities for example bars and toilets are often much smaller than in modern venues. The protected status of the structures and their confined urban locations, combined with economic constraints, mean it is extremely difficult to make significant enhancements to the level of comfort offered.

Many of the long running musicals staged in the Westend have profitably played to audiences for several years. A few of the most popular theatre shows include We Will Rock You which is set in a future world where rock music is banned, Les Miserables which is a global award winning musical about an epic story of passion and destruction, Chicago is about a girl who has murdered her lover but is acquitted, The Lion King which is an adaptation of the Disney film, The Phantom of the Opera that tells the tale of the phantom that terrorises the Paris Opera, Billy Elliot which is the poignant story of a boy who falls in love with ballet, Dirty Dancing which is the stage version of the classic movie, Sister Act is another adaptation of a hit movie, Mamma Mia is about a mother and daughter and three possible dads, and Stomp which is a fast paced mixture of music, tap dance and percussion. The list is endless as there really are so many Westend theatre productions to choose from. There really is something that would appeal to everybody. A West end performance is a really magnificent night out to remember.

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