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Through the Stage Door
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Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Catherine Street, London, WC2B 5JF
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Rating:
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- Waiting outside the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on a chilly Friday afternoon are not the throng of tourists I’d expected to find taking a tour of London’s oldest working theatre but a gaggle of GCSE students and their teachers.
The jovial actor who emerges from the heavy double doors fizzing with enthusiasm for his theatre welcomes his audience plumily with a barrage of facts and figures about the theatre’s movers and shakers (its stage has hosted, among others, Charles II’s mistress Nell Gwyn and Monty Python, who recorded a concert album here in 1974). He’s interrupted by a ‘cleaning lady’ in Tudor dress, bosom comically padded, who ushers us through to the Royal rooms for a potted history of the four theatres built on this Drury Lane site since the seventeenth century. It’s brief enough (one hour) to keep 30 teenagers engaged, an entertaining mix of folklore, intrigue and (mostly cringe-worthy) jokes.
The first actor returns in Victorian dress, staggering down the stairs after one too many whiskies to regale us with stories of brawling royalty and performing dogs, and chilling tales of the many ghosts said to stalk the theatre’s aisles.
‘Nell Gwyn’ puts in an appearance to conclude the tour backstage, amid myriad props, from heads sporting blonde elf-wigs to papier-mâché Dark Rider horses (the theatre’s current production is ‘The Lord of the Rings’).
Audience participation sees one poor boy as a reluctant Charles II emerging from a cupboard with Nell and there is plenty of giggling as audience members (particularly teachers) are brought into the narrative. One even scores himself a date with the cleaning lady.
It’s an enjoyable tour – if a little pricey, which is clearly adapted by the actors to suit their audience.
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Details
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Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Catherine Street, London, WC2B 5JF
- 0870 890 1109
- Category: Tours
- Times: Mon-Wed, Fri 2.15pm, 4.15pm, Thur, Sat 10.15am, 11.45am, Sun by appointment; booking to Sept 27
- Price: £9, children £7
- Tube: Covent Garden
