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Haymarket Theatre Royal

  • Theatre
  • Leicester Square
New_Theatre Royal002.jpg
© Susie Rea
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Time Out says

This storied (and potentially haunted) venue is one of London's oldest theatres

Dating back to the eighteenth century, Theatre Royal Haymarket is London's third oldest theatre that's still in use. On the outside, its gleaming white Neoclassical facade, designed by John Nash, features six stately Corinthian columns. On the inside, things have often been rather less dignified. The theatre's riotous history includes the 'Dreadful Accident' of 1794, where 20 people were killed in a crush of audience members trying to glimpse the king. It was also the home of legendarily scurrilous 18th century actor, theatre manager and satirist Samuel Foote, whose digs at other performers regularly threatened the theatre's existence. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given its long and eventful history, it's also one of London's most haunted theatres. Actor Patrick Stewart is the latest person to have claimed to see the ghost of the theatre's Victorian actor-manager, John Baldwin Buckstone, who apparently hangs out in the wings, wearing tweeds, when a comedy is playing. 

Unlike its West End neighbours, Theatre Royal Haymarket offers a clutch of fresh openings each year. One of the finest proscenium arches in theatreland frames a line-up that focuses on 'proper theatre': you'll regularly get celeb-led takes on classic 20th century plays, as well as the odd production of Shakespeare or a new musical. 

Details

Address:
18 Suffolk St
London
SW1Y 4HT
Transport:
Piccadilly Circus tube
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What’s on

The Picture of Dorian Gray

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • Drama

This one-woman stage adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s short horror is a dizzying technical masterpiece, boasting a tour-de-force performance from Sarah ‘Shiv Roy’ Snook in a multitude of roles. It is also incredibly camp. As in literally one of the campest things I’ve ever seen, a show that makes ‘Mamma Mia!’ look like a monster truck rally. Wilde was of course, famously both gay and a waspish wit, and ‘Dorian Gray’ contains some of his most famous aphorisms (‘conscience and cowardice and the same things’, ‘the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it’ etc). But there is something particularly revelatory about adaptor-director Kip Williams staging it as pretty much a celebrity drag king show. Snook plays every single character; many minor roles are pre-recorded and consequently, she is able to be lavishly costumed in parts that range from elderly pink-haired gentlewomen to rough, bearded scoundrels.  On the whole, these bits are less kitschy than her actual live performance: surrounded by a battalion of camera operators, Snook is constantly giving knowing, eyebrow-raising close-ups as she flits between characters, each camera angle typically representing a different speaker.  Early on, Aussie Snook does little more than a quick expression change and tweak of her English accent when leaping between parts: when she initially walks on there’s virtually nothing on stage bar a large video screen. Things get fancier when she claps on blonde curls and mutton chops to play the

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