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Adelphi Theatre

  • Theatre
  • Strand
Adelphi Theatre, Waitress
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Time Out says

Storied West End musical theatre house

This Grade II-listed building specialises in musicals and is jointly owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group and Nederlander International. The theatre was founded in 1806 as the Sans Pareil by John Scott and his daughter Jane, a manager, performer and playwright. After her marriage and retirement in 1819, it was renamed the Adelphi and developed a reputation for presenting lurid melodramas, which became known as ‘Adelphi screamers’. Adaptations of works by Dickens were also presented and the theatre itself is namechecked in ‘The Pickwick Papers’.

The theatre was demolished and reopened in 1858 as the more spacious New Adelphi, complete with a dazzling new chandelier. It was the site of a grisly murder in 1897 when actor William Terris was stabbed there; his ghost reputedly still haunts the building.

The trend for musical comedies began at the turn of the century, while the Adelphi went through further redevelopments. It reopened in 1930 in its present Art Deco style, designed by Ernest Schaufelberg. The inaugural production was Ridgers & Hart's musical ‘Ever Green’ and in 1975 it saw the UK premiere of Stephen Sondheim’s ‘A Little Night Music’. GLC plans for the redevelopment of Covent Garden saw the Adelphi come under threat of demolition, along with the Vaudeville, Garrick, Duchess and Lyceum, but the Save London Theatres campaign prevailed and they were saved.

In 1993, the Really Useful Group bought the theatre and undertook extensive refurbishment prior to the opening of Lloyd Webber’s musical ‘Sunset Boulevard’. In 1997, the Kander and Ebb revival ‘Chicago’ took up residence, before transferring to the Cambridge Theatre in 2006. Michael Grandage’s production of ‘Evita’ followed, and Brian Wilson gave a historic performance of the Beach Boys’ ‘Pet Sounds’ album here in 2006.

Lloyd Webber’s ‘Joseph’, starring TV talent show winner Lee Mead, was next; and in 2010 his 'Phantom' sequel, ‘Love Never Dies’, opened after a troubled development. It proved a dire, unwieldy piece. With a brief non-musical interlude for the National Theatre’s hit comedy ‘One Man Two Guvnors’ it's been musicals all the way since, with the likes of ‘The Bodyguard’ and ‘Kinky Boots’ taking stints there.

As of 2019 it was the new home for the hit US musical ‘Waitress’.

Details

Address:
409-412
Strand
London
WC2R 0NS
Transport:
Tube: Charing Cross
Price:
Varies
Opening hours:
Temporarily closed, typically Box Office is open from 10am–8pm
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What’s on

Back to the Future: The Musical

  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • Musicals

This review is from 2021. The current cast is headed by Ben Joyce (Marty) and Cory English (Doc).  This long-gestating musical version of ‘Back to the Future’ – it has literally taken longer to bring to the stage than all three films took to make – is so desperate to please that the producers would doubtless offer a free trip back in time with every ticket purchase if the laws of physics allowed. It is extra as hell, every scene drenched in song, dance, wild fantasy asides, fourth-wall-breaking irony and other assorted shtick. You might say that, yes, that’s indeed what musicals are like. But John Rando’s production of a script by the film’s co-creator Bob Gale is so constantly, clangingly OTT that it begins to feel a bit like ‘Back to the Future’ karaoke: it hits every note, but it does so at a preposterous velocity that often drowns out the actual storytelling.  As with the film, it opens with irrepressible teen hero Marty McFly visiting his friend ‘Doc’ Brown’s empty lab, where he rocks out on an inadvisably over-amped ukulele. Then he goes and auditions for a talent contest, hangs out with his girlfriend Jennifer, talks to a crazy lady from the clock tower preservation society, hangs out with his loser family… and takes a trip 30 years into the past in the Doc’s time-travelling DeLorean car, where he becomes embroiled in a complicated love triangle with his mum and dad. It is, in other words, the same as the film, with only a few minor plot changes (the whole thing about

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