London Westend
Theatre, cinema, restaurants, shops and a grand night out, are all synonymous with London’s West End.
The West End of London has long been the epicentre of the City’s cultural entertainment and going ‘up west’ was traditionally a real indulgence for Londoners.
Geographically the West End encompasses, Piccadilly Circus, a hub of neon billboards that never seems to stop moving, Soho once famous for its sleaze now more know for its trendy bars, Leicester Square with its self contained fun fair surrounded by London’s most famous cinemas which are venues for UK film premiers, Covent Garden, once the popular market immortalised by the film My Fair Lady and now a piazza of boutiques, bars and restaurants, Oxford Road and Regent Street, the pinnacle of London’s busy shopping streets and of course, Shaftesbury Street and the Strand what’s commonly regarded as Theatre Land.
The West End boasts some fifty theatres offering a range of box office busting productions and more diverse works and London is home to some of the best theatre, opera and ballet companies in the world.
Many of the most celebrated theatre venues can be found in this part of London, the Palace theatre, the Lyceum, the Adelphi, Her Majesty’s theatre, the Savoy and Drury Lane are all loosely within this location. But London’s theatre expands beyond the West End, though a play outside the official area of theatre land may still be called a West End play.
Beyond the boundaries of the West End you’ll find many respected theatre houses such as the Old Vic in Waterloo, the Dominion on Tottenham Court Road, the Barbican and the Globe Theatre in Southwalk a faithful reproduction of the famous Shakespearean Theatre house and ironically one of the latest additions to London’s Theatre Scene.
Built to the exact specifications of the original 1599 theatre, the Globe is an extraordinary structure. The round Tudor style building with its thatched roofing is open air just like the original for which Shakespeare wrote many of his greatest plays. As well as enactments of these plays performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company and others, you can visit the exhibition at the Globe, where guided tours provide an engaging insight into life in the theatre and in London during Shakespeare ’s time.
Back in the West End, the Theatre Museum, a part of the Victoria & Albert Museum houses an intriguing collection of theatrical costumes and memorabilia relating to British theatre from Shakespeare to Music Hall and makes a fascinating addition to a trip ‘up West’.
Tube Stations: Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Covent Garden
