Apollo Victoria Theatre

History of the Apollo Victoria Theatre

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. The cinema closed in 1975, reopening six years later as a theatre, with a concert by Shirley Bassey providing the opening night.

For eighteen years, 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 will now 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 will run for a strictly limited season prior to a European tour, before Broadway's Wicked receives its European premiere at the venue on 27 September 2006.

One of the largest theatres in the capital, its 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 (previews September 7, premieres September 27, 2006)