39 Fun Facts About West End Musicals

Which playhouse, built for Gilbert and Sullivan in 1881, was the first public building lit entirely by electricity?

The Savoy Theatre was lit by about 1,200 of Joseph Swan's incandescent lamps, and Richard D'Oyly Carte smashed a glowing bulb on stage to show the audience the new light was safe.

Which musical opened in 2006 at the Apollo Victoria, a London theatre built in 1930 as a cinema?

Wicked moved into the former New Victoria cinema four years after Starlight Express left; that show's roller-skating cast had raced on tracks running out from the stage into the auditorium.

Which military vehicle is the famous stage effect of Miss Saigon, Drury Lane's 1989 hit?

A helicopter lifts the last Americans from the embassy roof while Kim is left in the crowd at the gates, the show's version of the 1975 fall of Saigon.

The Phantom of the Opera opened in 1986 at which theatre on London's Haymarket?

His Majesty's Theatre changes its name with the sex of the monarch: Her Majesty's for Victoria, His for Edward VII, Her again for Elizabeth II, and His once more on Charles III's coronation day in 2023.

Billy Elliot, the Elton John musical, sets a boy's ballet lessons against which 1984–85 dispute in County Durham?

The miners' strike of 1984–85 tore through the Durham coalfield where the story is set, and Lee Hall based his screenplay partly on A. J. Cronin's 1935 novel about a mining community.

In Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the Pharaoh is traditionally played as a parody of which singer?

Elvis Presley is the model in most productions, with the Pharaoh crooning his dream of seven fat cows in 'Song of the King', one of the pop pastiches in a piece first written as a 15-minute school cantata.

The Book of Mormon, written with Avenue Q composer Robert Lopez, came from the creators of which animated TV series?

South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone worked with Lopez in London in 2006 while he was staging the West End Avenue Q, and their show became a long-running West End replica of the Broadway hit.

Everybody's Talking About Jamie, Sheffield's 2017 West End transfer, follows a schoolboy who wants to become what?

A drag queen is Jamie New's ambition, and the musical grew out of the 2011 television documentary Jamie: Drag Queen at 16, about County Durham schoolboy Jamie Campbell; the stage version moves him to Sheffield.

Which Pussycat Dolls singer won the 2024 Olivier for Best Actress in a Musical as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard?

Nicole Scherzinger led Jamie Lloyd's minimalist revival, which won seven of its eleven 2024 Olivier nominations, the most of any show that season, and she then took Norma to Broadway.

Blood Brothers, the musical about twins separated at birth, is set in the slums of which northern English port?

Liverpool is where single mother Mrs Johnstone hands one twin to her wealthy employer Mrs Lyons, and the piece began as a schools play before its 1983 Playhouse premiere.

Six, the Tudor-wives pop concert, was first performed at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe by students from which university?

Cambridge University Musical Theatre Society picked Toby Marlow to write a new show for the Fringe in late 2016, and Marlow and Lucy Moss wrote it as students before a West End run and a Broadway transfer.

Which street from Piccadilly Circus has the Lyric, Apollo and Gielgud theatres clustered on one side of the road?

Shaftesbury Avenue was cut through the crowded districts of St Giles and Soho between 1877 and 1886 as a new traffic artery, and named after the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury.

Les Misérables, which opened in London in 1985, is adapted from an 1862 novel by which French writer?

Victor Hugo's novel struck Alain Boublil as a musical while he watched Oliver! in London; it became a French concept album and a 1980 Palais des Sports staging before the English version opened five years later.

The Olivier Awards moved in 2017 to which venue, after five years at Covent Garden's opera house?

Royal Albert Hall took over in 2017, by which time the ceremony was back on television: from 2004 to 2010 it had gone out on radio alone.

Disney's The Lion King opened in 1999 at which venue off the Strand, a Mecca ballroom from 1951 to the 1980s?

The Lyceum Theatre was Henry Irving's house, where Bram Stoker worked as his business manager while writing Dracula; it closed in 1986 and was restored to theatrical use in 1996.

Which play opened in 2016 at the Palace Theatre, Les Misérables' home until 2004?

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child plays in a house Richard D'Oyly Carte opened in 1891 as a home for English grand opera; he sold it at a loss within a year and it became a variety theatre.

Which film-based musical, premiered at Manchester Opera House in 2020, won the 2022 Olivier for Best New Musical?

Back to the Future: The Musical transferred to the West End in 2021, realising a plan that screenwriter Bob Gale had floated at a 2004 DeLorean convention.

Which playwright wrote the musical Blood Brothers as well as the plays Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine?

Willy Russell wrote the score as well as the book, and he even stepped into the role of the Narrator for part of the show's 1980s national tour.

Miss Saigon relocates which Puccini opera to the Vietnam War, with a US Marine in place of the American naval officer?

Madama Butterfly's geisha becomes Kim, a Saigon bar girl, and the idea came from a magazine photograph of a Vietnamese mother giving up her child at an airbase gate so the child could join its American father.

Which Disney musical reopened Theatre Royal Drury Lane in 2021 after Lloyd Webber's two-year restoration?

Frozen had been announced for 2020, but the pandemic held back both the show and the restored theatre; it finally opened in September 2021 and ran for three years.

The New London Theatre, the original home of Cats, was renamed in 2018 in honour of which choreographer?

Gillian Lynne choreographed Cats and The Phantom of the Opera, and the venue that took her name on 1 May 2018 went on to host the world premiere of Lloyd Webber's Cinderella in 2021.

We Will Rock You, Ben Elton's Queen jukebox musical, ran from 2002 to 2014 at which Tottenham Court Road venue?

The Dominion Theatre marked the show's tenth anniversary in 2012 by turning a Judy Garland memorabilia area into a Freddie Mercury Suite, and the musical ran for 12 years before closing on 31 May 2014.

The Strand Theatre was renamed in 2005 after which composer, once a tenant of the flat upstairs?

Ivor Novello moved into the flat above the theatre with his mother in 1913 and kept it as his London home for the rest of his life, until his death in 1951.

Les Misérables' home from 2004, formerly the Queen's Theatre, was renamed in 2019 after which American composer?

Stephen Sondheim's name went up after a 20-week refurbishment and the theatre reopened on 18 December 2019; a German bomb had destroyed its facade and lobby in 1940 during a run of Rebecca.

Which Oscar-winning actor played the Emcee in the 2021 Kit Kat Club staging of Cabaret at the Playhouse Theatre?

Eddie Redmayne starred opposite Jessie Buckley's Sally Bowles in Rebecca Frecknall's in-the-round production, which cut the Playhouse to 550 seats with table seating to turn it into a nightclub.

& Juliet, where Anne Hathaway rewrites Shakespeare so Juliet survives, is scored with hits by which Swedish producer?

Max Martin's hits carry a book by David West Read; the show opened in Manchester in 2019, reached the West End that November, and on Broadway earned nine Tony nominations without a single win.

Which Second World War comedy about planting false papers on a corpse won the 2024 Olivier for Best New Musical?

Operation Mincemeat is the debut show of the comedy troupe SpitLip, who wrote and performed it; it began at the small New Diorama Theatre in 2019 and reached Broadway in 2025.

Which award completed Lloyd Webber's Oscar-Grammy-Tony set in 2018, won by a live TV concert of his 1970 rock opera?

An Emmy for the 2018 live broadcast completed the set for Lloyd Webber, and lyricist Tim Rice and performer John Legend, who shared the same award, completed theirs on the same night.

Julian Lloyd Webber, the composer Andrew's younger brother, became a world-renowned soloist on which instrument?

Cello is Julian Lloyd Webber's instrument, and Andrew wrote his 1978 Variations for him to settle a bet on a Leyton Orient football match: if Orient avoided defeat, Julian got a cello piece.

Les Misérables marked its 25th anniversary on 3 October 2010 with a concert at which London venue?

The O2 Arena concert meant three versions of the show were playing London at once, beside the original production and an anniversary tour at the Barbican, where the musical had first opened in 1985.

Blood Brothers' 24-year West End run ended in 2012 at which venue, its home since 1991?

The Phoenix Theatre housed a revival: the 1983 West End original lasted only a short run, yet Bill Kenwright's 1988 restaging played for 24 years and more than 10,000 performances.

Billy Elliot the Musical played from 2005 to 2016 at which West End theatre?

Victoria Palace Theatre was where three boys, James Lomas, George Maguire and Liam Mower, alternated as the first Billy and jointly won the 2006 Olivier for Best Actor in a Musical.

Which Blackadder star played Fagin in the 2009 West End revival of Oliver!, with TV-show winner Jodie Prenger as Nancy?

Rowan Atkinson earned a 2010 Olivier nomination for his Fagin, and when he fell ill in April 2009 Russ Abbot, a Fagin from the 1990s Palladium run, stepped in.

Which Neighbours star led the 1991 London Palladium restaging of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat?

Jason Donovan took 'Any Dream Will Do' to number one in 1991, and in 2019 he returned to the Palladium in a new production of the same show, this time as the Pharaoh.

Which Oscar-winning film director staged Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at Theatre Royal Drury Lane in June 2013?

Sam Mendes's production set a West End record for a single week's takings over New Year 2014, and its new Marc Shaiman score still made room for 'Pure Imagination' from the 1971 film.

Who directed The Lion King stage musical, becoming the first woman to win the Tony for Best Direction of a Musical?

Julie Taymor put actors in animal costumes alongside giant hollow puppets, and on the same night she won a second Tony for designing the show's costumes.

Which musical ran at the Palace Theatre from 1972 to 1980, the West End's longest musical run until Cats passed it?

Jesus Christ Superstar began as a 1970 concept album because no one would back a stage production; its eight-year London record then stood until Cats overtook it in 1989.

The Olivier Awards, first presented in 1976, were originally handed out under what name?

Society of West End Theatre Awards was the title until 1984, when Laurence Olivier agreed to lend his name; the first ceremony, in December 1976, was held at the Café Royal.

Which Lloyd Webber musical had its world premiere on 21 June 1978, reopening Soho's Prince Edward Theatre?

Evita began as a 1976 concept album sung by Julie Covington; when she declined the stage role, the part went to Elaine Paige, chosen from among many hopefuls.