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  • Theatre | Musicals
  • Soho

London Palladium

This gorgeous Georgian variety hall is one of London's most prestigious venues, even if it seems too big for a proper hit these days

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Time Out says

Tucked away between Oxford Circus and Great Marlborough Street with a discreetness that belies its enormous size, the London Palladium is one of the city's best-loved and most beautiful theatres. Opening on Boxing Day, 1910, its rose and gold interior has welcomed generations of audiences to shows with a populist, variety flavour. 'The Royal Variety Show', a perennial British favourite, is filmed here, while commercial stage shows from 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' to 'Scrooge' have benefited from a steady flow of popular TV faces.

Acquired by Andrew Lloyd Webber in 2000, the venue had a blockbuster '00s, the tail end fuelled by its owners hit talent search shows, foremost the production of 'The Sound of Music' spawned by 'How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?'

But with a whopping 2,286 seats, sometimes the Palladium struggles to find a hit big enough to fill it. Although 2011's 'The Wizard of Oz' was a legitimate box office success, the notorious flop of 'I Can't Sing!' in 2014 led to a period in the wilderness, where the theatre focused on limited run shows, comedy gigs, and one-off performances from bands. In 2019, that all changed with the prospect of a revival of Lloyd Webber's 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat', in a second coming for a hit of Biblical proportions.

Details

Address
8
Argyll Street
London
W1F 7TF
Transport:
Tube: Oxford Circus
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What’s on

Robin Hood

The Julian Clary show – aka the Palladium panto – rolls back into town for another Christmas, with the smutty comedy legend and firmly established star of the whole thing taking on the role of the eponymous moralist bandit, opposite national treasure Jane MacDonald as Maid Marion. Elsewhere, regulars Paul Zerdin, Nigel Havers, Charlie Stemp and Rob Madge return, plus there’s some new blood in the shape of West End stars Marisha Wallace and Tosh Wanogho-Maud. The show tends to feel a lot more like a series of turns than a coherent story, but that kind of befits the Palladium, and Clary’s astonishingly near-to-the-knuckle humour really is something to behold.

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