Queen's Theatre

With 'Les Misérables' consistently drawing in the punters, it's easy to overlook Queen's Theatre's chequered past. It opened back in 1907 with a run of duds, eventually hitting its stride with a production of 'Rebecca' only to be blasted in a bombing raid in 1940. The theatre's stone dome, grand staircase and foyer were destroyed and Queen's was forced to draw the curtain for nearly 20 years. Since reopening in 1959, it's fared slightly better, staging the seductive Marlene Dietrich in two cabaret seasons and Alec Guinness in his own take on Jonathan Swift's writings. The greatest success, however, is the 2004 transfer of RSC's version of Boublil and Schönberg's musical that continues to ply its earnest take on revolutionary France.