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Apollo Victoria Theatre History

The Apollo Victoria Theatre is a theatre on Wilton Road near Victoria station in London.

The building was designed as a "super-cinema" by E. Warmsley Lewis in 1930 in striking art deco style, and was originally called the New Victoria Cinema. The building was unusually built with two identical “fronts” on both Wilton Road and Vauxhall Bridge Road.

In June 1939, the BBC presented a live showing of the Epsom Derby in the Apollo Victoria and 2 other cinemas in London. During World War II, the cinema was closed for a period, but it was not damaged during the War and re-opened soon after. It was saved from demolition in the 1950s and went on to present ballet, live shows and films until November 1975 when the last films shown were Legend of the Werewolf and Vampire Circus.

From 1976 until 1981 the theatre was closed and re-opened with a new name, the Apollo Victoria Theatre, and a concert by Shirley Bassey. Musical theatre began in 1981 with The Sound of Music.

From 1984 the theatre was home to Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, Starlight Express, for which the theatre was extensively redesigned to accommodate a multi-tier roller skating arena.

On 12 January 2002, shortly before the show's 18th birthday, Lloyd Webber made the decision to stop the show, in order to open his new production of A. H. Rahman's Bombay Dreams, which received its world premiere on 19 June 2002. The original production, which starred Raza Jaffrey, ran for two years before closing on 13 June 2004 after over 1,500 successful performances.

As a "short" filler production, the Bee Gees musical Saturday Night Fever was brought back to the West End following a 14-month UK tour and a previous world premiere at the London Palladium in 1998. The show, booking to December of that year, was extended and was booking through to 29 April 2006.

However, it then leave the theatre on 18 February 2006 to make way for the European premiere of Broadway's Movin' Out, the Billy Joel musical from March 2006. This ran for a strictly limited season prior to a European tour, before Broadway's Wicked received its European premiere at the venue on 27 September 2006.

The show was an immediate success with record-breaking takings of £761,000 during the first 8 performances. Wicked celebrated its 5th birthday at the Apollo Victoria on Tuesday 27th September 2011 with a curtain call reunion of former cast members.

One of the largest theatres in the capital, the Apollo Victoria's capacity is 2,208.

Principal Productions

  • 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 (Premiered September 27, 2006)

Current Shows

General Information

For current information, including where to find the theatre and how to get there, see the main Apollo Victoria Theatre page.