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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, the rooms above pubs where things start, and the booth on Leicester Square that sells off what the West End has not. 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
The Victorian house where Joan Littlewood made Oh, What a Lovely War, and where a good deal of London's musical theatre still starts.
PlayhousesWorth it for the building
James George Buckle built it in 1884 - 460 seats on three levels, historically protected at the higher grade - and for its first seventy years it was an ordinary suburban theatre. Then in 1953 Joan Littlewood brought Theatre Workshop here and stayed until 1974, with Gerry Raffles managing, and turned it into the most important room in British theatre for a while. A Taste of Honey came out of it. So did Oh, What a Lovely War.
The habit did not stop when she did. Five Guys Named Moe went from here to the West End in 1990 and won an Olivier. The Big Life, in 2004, was the first Black British musical to make the same journey. The Harder They Come followed in 2005. The square outside is named after Raffles.
It is a producing house, so most of what is on was made in the building rather than booked into it, and the programme is pitched squarely at the borough it sits in rather than at people coming out from the middle.
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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.