Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 19/06/2026 21:20:00

One of the West End's most elegant Victorian playhouses, the Garrick Theatre stands on the curved southern stretch of Charing Cross Road, close to Leicester Square. It opened on 24 April 1889 with a production of Pinero's The Profligate, built for the dramatist W. S. Gilbert and designed by Walter Emden and C. J. Phipps. Named after the eighteenth-century actor David Garrick, it remains a Grade II* listed survivor of pre-1914 theatre design. The auditorium was originally laid out on four levels with a capacity reported at up to fifteen hundred, but successive changes over the decades steadily reduced its size. The pit was replaced by rear stalls seats after the Second World War and the gallery was partitioned down, leaving a present-day capacity of around 733 across stalls, dress circle and grand circle. A major refurbishment in 2015 introduced a fresh decorative scheme of pale marble, cream and gold with scarlet seating, plus a new stage lift and reorganised bars. Architecturally, the house is notable for its U-shaped balcony fronts stacked one above another and the absence of a conventional proscenium frame, the stage opening instead defined by flanking columns and twin caryatids. The Italianate plasterwork and tightly constrained front-of-house spaces are characteristic of West End theatres of its era, and the Northern line running beneath can occasionally be heard during quiet moments on stage. The Garrick narrowly escaped conversion into a cinema in the 1930s and has since hosted a long succession of dramas, comedies and musicals, including high-profile productions that have drawn star casts to its stage. Now owned by Nimax Theatres, it sits at the heart of the theatreland cluster, almost touching the neighbouring Duke of York's at the rear. For audiences, the appeal lies in the combination of intimate scale and grand Victorian detail, with good sightlines from the centre of the house and a sense of history in every tier. As one of London's enduring commercial theatres, the Garrick continues to play its part in the West End, a handsome reminder of the late nineteenth-century boom that shaped the district.