The Piccadilly Theatre opened in 1928, and was amongst London’s biggest theatres at the time, with a seating capacity of 1,395. Its premiere starred one of the period’s most famous actresses, Miss Evelyn Laye. The West End theatre served as a cinema in its early days, and went down in entertainment history as the venue that showed the first talking picture in Britain, The Singing Fool, starring Al Jolson, who went on to open the Jazz Singer and sang Mammie onstage afterwards.
In the 1990s, the theatre expanded its scope to include ballet, musicals and dance, the most notable of which was the West End’s best ever commercial ballet season, Swan Lake by Adventures in Motion Pictures. The Piccadilly Theatre has staged a wide variety of live entertainment, from A Night with Dame Edna to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
The Royal Shakespeare Company has performed an array of productions there, including Edward II with Ian Mckellen, and Henry Fonda’s West End debut in the solo performance Clarence Darrow and Y happened at the theatre. The Piccadilly Theatre is at Denman Street, London, W1D 7DY, behind Piccadilly Circus, and it seats 1,200. The closest public transport is Piccadilly Circus Underground.
