The Story of Musicals of the West End Evening Standard Edition

The lights go down in the auditorium, and a hush settles across the stalls, the balcony, the grand circle. Conversations are paused for later, phones stashed away, hands squeezed in anticipation. There’s a hum of bows sliding across strings as the orchestra tunes up for the overture. Then, the curtain rises.

This is the story of the musicals of London’s West End, told through articles in the Evening Standard dating back to 1908.

In these pages, you’ll venture back through the biggest new shows, revivals and stars that graced stages up and down Shaftesbury Avenue. Take your seat beside reporters in the front row of the stalls as you read about the opening nights of shows like The Pirates of Penzance, My Fair Lady, Phantom, Wicked and Hamilton. You’ll see the scandal caused by nudity in Hair in the late 60s, hear Dame Judi Dench singing Memories in 1981, and rejoice as Theatre-land opened back up again after the pandemic. 

Archivist insight: We reproduce these newspaper articles from scan archives. In some cases, there’ll be blemishes and the reproduction quality might not be as clear or precise as it was in the original paper.