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     London Theatre Tickets » List of London Theatres » Apollo Victoria theatre » History
Apollo Victoria Theatre - Information & History
The Apollo Victoria Theatre is located in Victoria and was originally built 1930 as an Art Deco 'Super Cinema' Cine Variety Theatre with a huge seating capacity of 2208. In fact its name was the 'New Victoria Cine-Variety Theatre' and it was designed as a Theatrical Venue to offer stage performances that were performed before a cinematic show, which was the latest craze of the talking movies during the thirties. During its first ten years, the Apollo Victoria found it difficult to fill its huge seating capacity and, despite the growth of the 'talkies', the Super cinema found it hard to make money and was sometimes used as live band venue due to its size.
The Apollo Victoria Cinema closed in 1975 and finally re-opened in 1981 as a live music venue, was renamed its current name the Apollo Victoria Theatre, and opened with a Shirley Bassey Concert. In time, the Apollo Victoria Cinema settled into plays and musicals, and there were various productions which followed in quick succession, such as 'The Sound of Music' staring Petula Clark in its inaugural year 1981, Camelot in 1982 starring Richard Harris, 'Dash' with Wayne Sleep in 1983, and yet another blockbuster 'Fiddler on the Roof' starring Topol. What a fantastic start to the Apollo Victoria's legacy.
The Apollo Victoria is unique in as much that it has two entrances in separate streets, both of which are virtually identical - one on Vauxhall Bridge Road and one on Wilton Street. The Apollo Victoria is one of the best surviving examples of Art Deco style 1930's Super Cinema and is a Grade II listed building.
After the end of the 'Fiddler on the Roof', the Apollo Victoria Theatre was taken over by Andrew Lloyd Webber's production of 'Starlight Express' and to accommodate this ground breaking show it was necessary to remove more than half the seats. In fact 1,262 were removed to accommodate the Roller Skating Track and the auditorium was painted black inside for effect. The Starlight Express first performance opened on March 26th 1984 and was a resounding success. It ran for 7,406 performances right up to January 1992, and afterwards the Apollo Victoria was closed for extensive refurbishment to restore the seating and its Art Deco style and façade.
Andrew Lloyd Webber decided to close the Starlight Express run in order to make way for his new production 'Bombay Dreams', an adaptation of A.H Rahman's story. The production opened its world premiere on June 2002. The original production starred Raza Jaffrey and ran for 2 years until closing in June 2004 after 1,500 performances.
Principal productions at the Apollo Victoria:
- The Sound of Music (August 17, 1981 - September 18, 1982)
- Camelot (November 23, 1982 - February 5, 1983)
- Fiddler on the Roof (June 28, 1983 - October 29, 1983)
- Starlight Express (March 27, 1984 - January 12, 2002)
- Bombay Dreams (June 19, 2002 - June 13, 2004)
- Saturday Night Fever (July 2, 2004 - February 18, 2006)
- Movin' Out (March 28, 2006 - July 17, 2006)
- Wicked (From September 27, 2006)
The Bee Gee's musical 'Saturday Night Fever' returned to the West End and, following a 14 month UK tour, it came to the Apollo Victoria for what was going to be a short run, which ended up running from 1998 through to February 2006. There was then a short run to fill in of the Broadway's 'Movin' Out', the Billy Joel Musical, before the other Broadway success 'Wicked' staged its European premiere at the Apollo Victoria in September 2006. Who knows how long that will run at one of the largest theatres in London with a seating capacity of 2,208 at the Apollo Victoria.
Showing: Wicked Apollo Victoria theatre | Performances | Information | Directions | History
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