Les Miserables

London Explained – London Theatreland…

by exploringlondon

Said to be the largest theatre district in the world, London’s Theatreland is located in the West End (and some say synonymous with it) and features some 40 playhouses.

The lights of Theatreland – pictured is the production of Les Miserables at the Sondheim Theatre. PICTURE: Samuel Regan-Asante/Unsplash

The theatres are primarily located in Covent Garden, around Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus and in Soho. The street most associated with today’s Theatreland is perhaps Shaftsbury Avenue.

Many of the privately owned theatres date from the Victorian or Edwardian period and are protected against inappropriate development (although this means they also sometimes lack more modern amenities)

Among the theatres in the district is the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (the oldest theatre in London, it opened in 1663) as well as the Savoy Theatre (which in 1881 became the first to be lit by electricity), the London Palladium in Soho (which has hosted the Royal Variety Performance 43 times), and the Lyceum Theatre (where Bram Stoker was once manager).

The longest-running production in the world – Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap – has been running at St Martin’s Theatre since 1952 (though it was interrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic). The longest-running musical in the West End – Les Miserables – has been running since 1985 (first at the Palace Theatre and now at the Sondheim Theatre (formerly Queens Theatre)).

10 iconic London film locations…4. Greenwich’s Old Royal Naval College becomes Lilliput…

by exploringlondon

Old-Royal-Naval-College

When the makers of the 2010 Jack Black movie Gulliver’s Travels were looking for suitably grand buildings to represent the Lilliputian capital, they turned to the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich.

Designed by Sir Christopher Wren, the World Heritage-listed site made a grand backdrop for the film in which a supersized Black plays Gulliver, the hero of Jonathan Swift’s book (incidentally Blenheim Palace near Oxford also makes an appearance in the film).

It’s not the first time, of course, that the location has featured in recent films – in fact, such has been its popularity that Empire asked last year whether it was the most popular film location in the world.

Other films in which the Old Royal Naval College appears have included The Dark Knight Rises (where it features in the epilogue), Les Miserables (where the buildings represent a part of a Paris featuring a gigantic wooden elephant which is home to the street urchin Gavroche), and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (where the spectacular Painted Hall, designed by Wren and Nicholas Hawksmoor, represents the King’s palace).

It has also appeared in both of the recent Sherlock Holmes films as well as a host of others – everything from The Mummy Returns to The Madness of King George and Charlotte Gray.

For more on the history of the Old Royal Naval College, check out our previous post here and here.