Lee’s World
Theatre
Living in the centre of London is a real advantage to getting to the West End theatres.
For a list of all the plays I have seen over the past few years, click here, or on the left.
Of the current West End productions, my recommendations are –
Wicked - the story of what happened in Oz before Dorothy arrived - is playing the Apollo Victoria.
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert - the Musical, is worth seeing at the Palace Theatre. It's the campest, gayest musical in London with something like 500 costumes.
The National Theatre is close to my home, and I am a regular visitor. Whilst there are some odd productions, the majority are well worth catching.
A highlight at the National is the series of “Platforms”. The platforms cost about £3.50 each and are very varied - anything from a lecture from Diana Rigg, conversations with Jane Fonda, Stephen Sondheim or Judi Dench, or Alan Bennett reading from his diaries.
A limited number of Day Seats are available from the Box Office from 10am on the day of performance.
For a full listing of productions in the West End, visit the web site of the Society of London Theatres.
Half-price
tickets (plus up to a £2.50 per ticket service charge) for several West End
productions are available from the Society of London Theatres Ticket Booth
(now called tkts) in Leicester Square everyday from noon to 7pm.
Visitors to London please note, this is the only official ticket booth on the South side of the square. It is not a shop or kiosk in one of the side streets off the square who advertise themselves as the Leicester Square ticket booth, or having "half price tickets here".
The tckts booth occasionally has tickets for shows like Phantom and Billy Elliott. These can be at full price plus a commission fee of £2.50. To check what tickets are available on a particular day, log into www.officiallondontheatre.com in the morning - a full list should be available with prices.
When these are not available through the booth, there are usually a number of ticket touts around the booth offering tickets to these shows. The tickets they offer though tend to be worst in the theatre (eg, back balcony) and will sell them at the price of the top-priced tickets for the respective show. By law they are supposed to show what the face value of the tickets is. In practice they don't, so get away with selling a £10 ticket for £35 or more. If using a source like touts, do examine the tickets and see what the face value of the ticket is first before parting with cash.
There are also plenty of online discounts - have a look at www.lastminute.com or www.whatsonstage.com for offers.