The Garrick Theatre is located on Charing Cross Road, near to Leicester Square in London’s West End. Below you can find information on how to get to the theatre and a map showing the location of the venue.
Address:
Garrick Theatre, 2 Charing Cross Road, London, WC2H 0HH
Parking:
NCP at Upper St Martin's Lane
Public Transportation:
Nearest Underground: Leicester Square (Northern, Piccadilly), Charing Cross (Northern, Bakerloo), Embankment (District, Circle)
Bus Routes:
3, 6, 9, 12, 13, 15, 24, 29, 30
Some highlights of the building’s theatrical heritage are listed below.
1889 Sir John Hare produced and starred in The Profligate with Johnstone Forbes Robertson and Lewis Waller.
1895 The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith by Arthur Wing Pinero starred Mrs Patrick Campbell.
1900 Arthur Bouchier took over management with his wife Violet Vanbrugh and had the first of a series of successes with J M Barrie’s The Wedding Guest.
1905 The Walls of Jericho by Alfred Sutro ran for almost a year.
1911 The Unwritten Law was a stage version of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Oscar Asche took residence for a season with his wife Lily Brayton presenting Count Hannibal, The Merry Wives of Windsor and a revival of their popular success Kismet.
1915 Arthur Bouchier relinquished management.
1918 By Pigeon Post, a play by Austin Page, was the first production after C B Cochran becomes lessee.
1919 Cyrano de Bergerac.
1922 Sir Seymour Hicks appeared in his own play The Man in Dress Clothes.
1924 André Charlot presented The Rat by Ivor Novello and A E Abrahams took over the lease.
1926 The Ghost Train by Arnold Ridley successfully transferred to the theatre.
1927 An adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
1928 The Moscow Art Theatre Company visited with a short season of plays by Chekov, Gorki, Ostrovsky and Tolstoy. Jean Forbes Robertson starred as Peter Pan.
1929 Edith Evans as The Lady With the Lamp.
1930 Tallulah Bankhead played Marguerite in The Lady of the Camelias.
1935 Love on the Dole with Wendy Hiller and Cathleen Nesbitt.
1937 A A Milne’s comedy Sarah Simple.
1943 An adaptation of Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock.
1946 Beatrice Lillie headlined the revue Better Late and Jack Buchanan became the next actor/manager.
1947 Laurence Olivier directed Born Yesterday and Buchanan starred with Coral Browne in a revival of Frederick Lonsdale’s Canaries Sometimes Sing.
1950 Richard Attenborough and Yolande Donlan transferred from the Savoy with To Dorothy a Son.
1953 Buchanan returned with Dorothy Dickson in As Long as They’re Happy.
1955 The revue La Plume de Ma Tante was an enormous success, during the run of which Jack Buchanan died (1957).
1958 Dora Bryan in Living for Pleasure.
1959 Margaret Rutherford and Peggy Mount lead the cast in Farewell Farewell Eugene.
1960 The Stratford East production of Lionel Bart’s Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be began a long run with Miriam Karlin.
1962 Sheila Hancock starred in Rattle of a Simple Man.
1967 Brian Rix presented and appeared in Stand by Your Bedouin, the first in a season of farces including Uproar in the House and Let Sleeping Wives Lie.
1971 The last of these farces was Don’t Just Lie There Say Something.
1972 Anthony Shaffer’s Sleuth transferred.
1973 Dandy Dick starred Alastair Sim.
1975 Robert Stigwood presented Aspects of Max Wall for a six-week sell-out season.
1976 Richard Beckinsale headlined the risqué comedy Funny Peculiar.
1977 Side by Side by Sondheim transferred and was a continuing success with its third cast.
1978 Ira Levin’s thriller Deathtrap began a long run into 1981.
1982 No Sex Please We’re British transferred from the Strand and remained until 1986 when it transferred again to the Duchess.
1986 The Garrick was acquired by Stoll Moss Theatres and refurbished. It reopened in November with Judi Dench and Michael Williams in Mr and Mrs Nobody.
1987 William Gaunt and Susie Blake in When Did You Last See Your Trousers? by Ray Galton and John Antrobus.
1988 Jane How and Zena Walker transferred from the King’s Head, Islington, in Noël Coward’s Easy Virtue.
1989 Another Coward success with Rupert Everett and Maria Aitken in The Vortex. Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good transferred from the Royal Court.
1990 Short seasons of Bent with Ian McKellen and Michael Cashman, Frankie Howerd and Fences with Yaphet Kotto are followed by the first major West End transfer from the newly-managed Almeida Theatre, Islington, with The Rehearsal by Jean Anouilh.
1991 Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa transferred from the Phoenix (after the National).
1993 John Godber’s On the Piste and Steven Berkoff’s One Man.
1994 Tom Courtenay in Moscow Stations and a festive season with Fascinating Aida.
1995 The Live Bed Show with Paul Merton and Caroline Quentin, the Abbey Theatre production of Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars and Clarke Peters in Unforgettable – The Nat King Cole Story, precede the arrival of the Royal National Theatre’s An Inspector Calls, which began its second prolonged season in the West End.
2000 The Garrick became a Really Useful Theatre when Lord Lloyd-Webber’s Really Useful Group and Bridgepoint Capital purchased Stoll Moss Theatres Ltd.
2001 Feelgood transferred from Hampstead Theatre followed by J B Priestley’s Dangerous Corner.
2002 The hit British premiere production of This is Our Youth plays two seasons either side of a successful run of The Lieutenant of Inishmore.
2003 The year began with the fourth cast of This is Our Youth prior to the opening of Jus’ Like That!, Ross Noble and Wait Until Dark.
2004 Ricky Gervais workshoped his latest stand up venture, Politics, followed by a revival of David Mamet’s Oleanna and The Solid Gold Cadillac starring Patricia Routledge and Roy Hudd.
2005 Sheila Hancock returned to the scene of her West End debut as Mum in The Anniversary.
2006 You Never Can Tell by Theatre Royal Bath and the reprise of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest starring Christian Slater and Alex Kingston (Nica Burns, Max Weitzenhoffer and Ian Lenegan).
In 2005 veteran producers Nica Burns and Max Weitzenhoffer purchased the Garrick Theatre, along with the Apollo, Duchess and Lyric Theatres creating Nimax Theatres on 26 September 2005. The Vaudeville Theatre, solely owned by Max Weitzenhoffer, completes the Nimax portfolio.
Mark Fox with thanks to George Hoare. Copyright Really Useful Theatres
Space does not allow for inclusion of all productions at this theatre.
