London Theatres - Today's West End

Today's West End opened in the 19th Century when many of the impressive and gorgeous theatre buildings still reputation today were upright and theatregoing became extremely fashionable among the middle and upper classes. The base of the West End was at last put in place towards the end of the century when Shaftesbury Avenue was made and theatres were soon construct along it.

New West End theatres continued to be built throughout the early years of the 20th Century, while the post war years saw the opening of London’s two great, modern, centres of theatre: the National Theatre and the Barbican. Although the rise of alternative entertainments such as the cinema and the cost of maintaining such extravagant buildings posed a constant challenge, West End theatre has continued to flourish in the modern era.

The prospect of many West End theatres has been constructed more secure through their purchase by major commercial theatre organisations such as the Ambassador Theatre Group, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group and Cameron Mackintosh’s Delfont Mackintosh Group.