Prince of Wales Theatre, West End theatre in Coventry Street, London
The Prince of Wales Theatre is a West End playhouse on Coventry Street in Westminster, offering 1,160 seats across several tiers. The building combines 1930s Art Deco architecture with contemporary stage equipment and stands a short walk from Piccadilly Circus in London's theatre district.
Charles J. Phipps designed the original building as Prince's Theatre in 1884, renamed two years later after the future king. Robert Cromie's Art Deco replacement rose from mid-1937 and has remained a home for major West End productions ever since.
The name honors the future Edward VII and reflects the royal connections that shaped London's West End during the Victorian era. Today the auditorium hosts large-scale musicals and attracts audiences who come for the grand Art Deco interior as much as for the performances themselves.
The box office opens two and a half hours before curtain time, with house doors usually admitting visitors half an hour ahead of the show. Wheelchair users can enter via a designated entrance and hearing loops are available throughout the auditorium for those who need them.
Actress Gracie Fields laid the foundation stone on 17 June 1937, linking her celebrity to the theatre's rebirth and marking the shift from the old Phipps structure to Cromie's modern vision. That ceremony gave the reconstruction a public face and underlined the theatre's ongoing importance in London entertainment.
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