Qualla: Lyric Theatre, London https://qualla.com/lyric-theatre-london en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:15 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/lyric-theatre-london-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Lyric Theatre, London https://qualla.com/lyric-theatre-london Lyric Theatre, London: Introduction https://qualla.com/lyric-theatre-london/ Photo credit Yair Haklai, CC BY-SA 4.0. Henry Leslie made £100,000 from one operetta and decided to put a theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue. The operetta was Dorothy, by Alfred Cellier and B. C. Stephenson, a light comedy that played 931 performances - an extraordinary run for the 1880s. Leslie commissioned C. J. Phipps, the architect of the Savoy and Her Majesty's, to design him a four-tier house with a capacity of 1,306. On 17 December 1888, the Lyric Theatre opened with the 817th performance of Dorothy, transferred wholesale from the Prince of Wales. Leslie made a curtain speech promising to model himself on the Paris Opera-Comique. He went broke within three years. The theatre, however, is still here - the second built on Shaftesbury Avenue and the oldest surviving.

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Image: Yair Haklai | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/lyric-theatre-london-wp/gcpv-lyric-theatre-london-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Lyric Theatre, London: An Old Wall at the Back https://qualla.com/lyric-theatre-london/ Photo credit CherryX, CC BY-SA 3.0. Push through into the rear of the building and you find something strange: an original 1767 house front, preserved inside the structure. It belonged to the surgeon and anatomist Sir William Hunter, whose former house and museum stood here long before any theatre. Phipps wrapped h...

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]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/lyric-theatre-london-wp/gcpv-lyric-theatre-london-an-old-wall-at-the-back.mp3 0:06 2 full Lyric Theatre, London: Comic Operas and Roman Christians https://qualla.com/lyric-theatre-london/ Photo credit Kreepin Deth, CC BY 3.0. Horace Sedger, who took over from the bankrupted Leslie, ran the theatre on a then-enormous £6,500 a year rent and gave London Eleonora Duse's first British appearance in 1893. He also produced W. S. Gilbert's Mountebanks with Alfred Cellier in 1892, hoping for Dorothy lightning ...

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]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/lyric-theatre-london-wp/gcpv-lyric-theatre-london-comic-operas-and-roman-christians.mp3 0:06 3 full Lyric Theatre, London: The Chocolate Soldier https://qualla.com/lyric-theatre-london/ Photo credit Chris McKenna (Thryduulf), CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1910 the Lyric staged The Chocolate Soldier, an operetta by Oscar Straus that turned Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man into Viennese light music. Shaw despised it, calling the result 'that degradation of a decent comedy into a dirty farce.' The public ignored him. The Chocolate ...

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]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/lyric-theatre-london-wp/gcpv-lyric-theatre-london-the-chocolate-soldier.mp3 0:06 4 full Lyric Theatre, London: The Long Runners https://qualla.com/lyric-theatre-london/ Photo credit Allan warren, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Lyric has carried some of the West End's defining long runs. Irma La Douce opened in July 1958 and stayed until March 1962, racking up 1,512 performances with Elizabeth Seal and Keith Michell. Robert and Elizabeth, a 1964 musical about the elopement of Robert Browning and Eli...

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]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/lyric-theatre-london-wp/gcpv-lyric-theatre-london-the-long-runners.mp3 0:06 5 full Lyric Theatre, London: Twenty-first Century https://qualla.com/lyric-theatre-london/ Photo credit Mx. Granger, CC0. Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group bought the theatre in 2000; Nimax Theatres took it on in 2005. Ian McKellen played Strindberg's The Dance of Death in 2003 alongside Frances de la Tour. Then in January 2009 the Michael Jackson tribute Thriller - Live opened and stayed, d...

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]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/lyric-theatre-london-wp/gcpv-lyric-theatre-london-twenty-first-century.mp3 0:06 6 full