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Prince of Wales Theatre

  • Theatre
  • Leicester Square
Prince of Wales Theatre
Pres Panayotov / Shutterstock.com
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Time Out says

This West End theatre has a long (and very glamorous) history of staging musical theatre extravaganzas

For over a hundred years, the Prince of Wales Theatre has been giving West End crowds a proper night out at a glitzy succession of musical shows. Its 1,160-seater auditorium is tricked out in a modern take on Art Deco style, and glows in shades of metallic bronze and red.

Named after the future Edward VII, this theatre dates back to 1884, but it’s been through quite a few changes over the years. The original Prince of Wales Theatre hosted Victorian theatre stars like Lillie Langtry and Charles Hawtree, and developed a reputation for comic operas and musicals. In the early twentieth century, Ivor Novello and Noel Coward launched their fantastically flamboyant revues at the venue. And in the '30s, things took a still more extravagant turn with the advent of the 'Folies Bergere'. These risqué song-and-dance shows ran nonstop from 2pm until midnight, and titillated audiences with a mixture of lavish design, magical effects, and scantily-clad chorus girls. 

The Folies pulled in so much money that the theatre was completely rebuilt in 1937, to house twice as many punters. From then on, things proceeded on starry form, with Mae West and Katherine Dunham both appearing at the Prince of Wales, as part of an ever-changing line-up of revues, musicals and variety shows. Barbra Streisand starred in 'Funny Girl' in 1966, followed by the success of comedy show 'Underneath the Arches' and Lloyd Webber's record-breaking 1989 bohemian musical 'Aspects of Love'.

The Prince of Wales then underwent a swish refurbishment in 2004, re-opening in its current form with smash hit ‘Mamma Mia!’ which became the longest-running show ever at the venue. In 2013 it was booted out to make way for the smash comedy ‘The Book of Mormon’, which has been in place ever since.

Details

Address:
31
Coventry Street
London
W1D 6AS
Transport:
Tube: Piccadilly Circus/Leicester Square
Price:
Various
Opening hours:
Check website for show times
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What’s on

The Book of Mormon

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • West End

This review is from 2013. Brace yourself for a shock: ‘South Park’ creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Broadway-munching musical is not particularly shocking. Sure, there are ‘fucks’ and ‘cunts’ and gags about baby rape – but most of it is deployed ironically; beneath it all, this is a big-hearted affair that pays note-perfect homage to the sounds and spirit of Broadway’s golden age. The strapping young Latter Day Saints missionaries in ‘The Book of Mormon’ are as cartoonish as any ‘South Park’ character, with the endearing alpha-male woodenness of the ‘Team America’ puppets. In other words, they are loveable, well-intentioned idiots, traversing the globe like groups of pious meerkats, convinced they can convert the heathen through sheer politeness. And if they have doubts, then as Stephen Ashfield’s scene-stealingly repressed Elder McKinley declares in glorious faux-Gershwin number ‘Turn it Off’, ‘Don’t feel those feelings – hold them in instead!’ His advice is ignored by the show’s heroes, narcissistic, highly-strung Elder Price (Gavin Creel) and dumpy, lying Elder Cunningham (Jared Gertner). The pair are sent to Uganda in an effort to convert a village to Mormonism, a religion that essentially tells the penniless villagers how great distant America is. The locals are not keen: Price cracks and unwisely clashes with a crazed local warlord; Cunningham makes up his own version of Mormonism which involves fucking frogs to cure oneself of Aids. ‘The Book of Mormon’ is, above

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