The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

Read about the most famous theatre in the world

The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a remarkable place.

It's Nell Gwynne in The Conquest of Granada and Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady; it's the china scene in The Country Wife and the screen scene in The School for Scandal; it's David Garrick as Richard III and Carlo the dog jumping into a tank of water in The Caravan; it's Dora Jordan showing her legs in As You Like It and Ivor Novello showing his profile in Glamorous Night; Madame Vestris dragged up as Don Giovanni and Dan Leno dragged up as Mother Goose; Grimaldi falling through a trapdoor and fracturing his collarbone and Edmund Kean delaying the curtain for Venice Preserv'd because 'I always take a shag before the play begins'; Isaac Van Amburgh's lions and the first production in English of The Magic Flute; it's pantomimes with 500 people on the stage and the first British performance of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde; it's horses running the Derby, the Two Thousand Guineas and Ben Hur's chariot race; it's The Bohemian Girl and Miss Saigon; 'Rule Britannia' and 'Ol' Man River'.

It's the theatre where Aaron Hill was locked out by rebellious actors, where actors led by the rebellious Theophilus Cibber were locked out by the management and where Sheridan was locked in until he completed The Critic; where Sarah Siddons made George III cry and Ivor Novello made Queen Mary cry.

It’s the theatre where Shakespeare spelt ruin and Byron bankruptcy, but managers kept on producing them because it just might work this time.

The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, was regarded as the national theatre long before there was such an institution, although it has never received any government subsidy. Its current owner, Andrew Lloyd Webber, is giving it a spectacular makeover which will make it a day-long destination for Londoners and visitors alike when it re-opens at the end of 2020 with the stage version of Disney’s Frozen.

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