Performance venues

London's stages and concert rooms: the West End houses and the playhouses that make their own shows, the grand halls, the churches with a musical life, the jazz basements, the comedy clubs, the clubs proper, and the rooms above pubs where things start. What is on is listed under each venue, and in What's On.

What is on at them this week is in What's On: Performance

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London Coliseum

Frank Matcham's 1904 variety palace, the largest theatre in London, where English National Opera sings everything in English.

OperaWorth it for the building

Photo by Photograph by Mike Peel ( www.mikepeel.net )., CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Oswald Stoll wanted the grandest variety house in the country and got Matcham, the best theatre architect of the age, to build it: a globe on the roof, marble everywhere, and 2,359 seats, which is still more than any other theatre in London. It had the first revolving stage in the country and a lift meant for taking the King to his box, which broke.

English National Opera moved in in 1968 and has been here since. Its founding principle is the one that still sets it apart - everything is sung in English, whatever language it was written in - and it prices a large part of the house cheaply on purpose.

Where
32-35 St Martin's Lane, WC2N 4ES
Nearest station
Leicester Square · 3 min walk

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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.

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