Tube

Holborn/Covent Garden are the tube stations closest.

Train

Charing Cross is the National Rail Station is the nearest. London Victoria and Waterloo are also not too far by tube, taxi or bus.

Bus

Bus Routes: 1, 4, 6, 9, 11, 13, 15, 19, 22, 38, 55, 68, 76, 171, 176, 188.

Parking

MasterPark at Poland Street. NCP underground below the theatre. Discounts available for Theatre patrons.

Previous theatres on this site include the 1851 Middlesex Music Hall which was rebuilt in 1911 by Frank Matcham and was then renamed the Winter Garden in 1919. The theatre went dark in 1960 and was demolished in 1965. The present theatre was designed with a third of the stalls on a revolve while the walls were designed to be movable - giving the New London Theatre's auditorium the facility to be adaptable.

The modern New London theatre is built on a site of previous taverns and music hall theatres, where a place of entertainment has been located site since Elizabethan times. Nell Gwynn was associated with the tavern, which became known as the Great Mogul by the end of the 17th century, and presented entertainments in an adjoining hall. 1919, the theatre was sold to George Grossmith, Jr. and Edward Laurillard, refurbished and reopened as the Winter Garden Theatre.

The Vagabond King was produced at the theatre in 1927, and in 1929, Fred and Adele Astaire starred in Funny Face. In 1930, Sophie Tucker played in the Vivian Ellis musical Follow a Star, and in 1923, Gracie Fields appeared here in Walk This Way. In 1933, the theatre hosted Lewis Casson in George Bernard Shaw's On the Rocks, followed in 1935 by Love on the Dole, starring Wendy Hiller. The theatre closed in the late 1930s, and then reopened in 1942. The theatre closed again in 1959 when it was sold by the Rank Organisation to a developer. It was then completely gutted and remained vacant until 1965 to be replaced in 1973 by the current building.


The New London Theatre was designed by Paul Tvrtkovic and seats 960 on two levels, the theatre's auditorium first opened with a television recording of Marlene Dietrich's one-woman show on November 23rd-24th, 1972. The theatre officially opened on January 2nd, 1973 with a production of The Unknown Soldier and His Wife starring Peter Ustinov. It then hosted Grease, starring Richard Gere as Danny. The theatre was then used as a television studio for several years and then returned to be used as a theatre. The theatre's biggest hit was the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Trevor Nunn musical Cats, which premièred in the theatre on 11th May 1981 and closing in 2002.


Between 2003 and 2005 the theatre hosted Bill Kenwright's revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. This closed after a two and a half year run on 3rd September 2005. Most recently, the venue played host to the London transfer of the off-Broadway production, Blue Man Group, which closed in June 2007, to make way for the Royal Shakespeare Company's repertory productions of The Seagull and King Lear, starring Ian McKellen. From Spring 2008, Gone With The Wind played for a relatively short run.

The theatre has been owned since 1991 by Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Theatre Company.

There are two bars. Also available is a coffee bar offering confectionery and snacks.