1. The foyer of the Theatre Royal, Sydney
    Photograph: Nigel Kippers/Time out
  2. Theatre Royal auditorium
    Photograph: Pierre Toussaint
  3. Theatre Royal stage
    Photograph: Pierre Toussaint

Theatre Royal Sydney

One of Sydney's modernist masterpieces has had a top-to-bottom glow-up after a five-year hiatus
  • Theatre
  • Sydney
Maxim Boon
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Time Out says

To date, four Theatre Royals have raised a curtain on this site in the CBD, dating back almost as long as Sydney has existed. The current incarnation, a Harry Seidler-designed architectural treasure, was opened in 1976 within the MLC Centre, replacing the 1875 Theatre Royal, and for decades, it reigned as one of Sydney's most hallowed Broadway-style venues, hosting the Australian premieres of both Cats and The Phantom of the Opera, the latter running for a whopping three years and seen by more than a million thetregoers.

However, in 2016, long overdue for a glow-up, the theatre closed its doors. But not for good. Plans were afoot to make significant upgrades and extensions to the MLC Centre that would revitalise the heart of the CBD as a vibrant entertainment, retail and nightlife hub.

Five years later, and the Theatre Royal has undergone a top-to-bottom upgrade of both its front-of-house and backstage facilities. Reopened to the public on November 29, it's now the crowning jewel in the ambitious multibillion-dollar 25 Martin Place development.

The venue is under the management of Trafalgar Entertainment, one of London's most experienced theatre operators.

Details

Address
25 Martin Place
108 King St
Sydney
2000
Opening hours:
Box office: Mon-Fri 9am-5pm.

What’s on

And Then There Were None

3 out of 5 stars
Hold on to your alibis, dear readers. Hot on the heels of the recent national tour of The Mousetrap, another classic from Agatha Christie’s playbook of murder mystery mayhem lands on the stage at Sydney’s Theatre Royal.  *** Time Out Melbourne reviewed And Then There Were None when it played at the Comedy Theatre in February. Read on for that three-star review:   Somewhere off the coast of Devon is a dreary little island with high cliffs, higher tides and no way to escape. It’s Soldier Island: a lovely place to put your feet up, take a dip, meet nine strangers and watch as you all get slowly picked off one-by-one. This is the wickedly thrilling premise of Agatha Christie’s 1939 classic And Then There Were None. A favourite among Christie fans (and Christie herself), it arrives in a production that once again proves that the master of the whodunnit can still thrill us nearly 100 years on. Yet, this revival from director Robyn Nevin – her second of Christie’s following 2023’s The Mousetrap – rests on the laurels of its author too often, offering a passable but ultimately thin restaging that I think might signal the end of the recent resurgence of British classics in our theatres. It’s 1939. Ten people have been invited to Soldier Island under suspicious pretences. They have little in common apart from the skeletons in their closets. For much of the show’s bloated first act, we’re watching this motley crew of potential victims introduce themselves to each other. Christie is...
  • Drama
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