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The weather may be struggling to catch up, but summer is now officially on, and with it one of the best bits in the annual musical theatre calendar.
Where many musicals these days will charge you triple figures for a tepid seat in the circle, West End Live has the distinction of being totally free (it’s actually funded by the City of Westminster but you don’t really need to worry about that). Not only that, but pretty much everyone shows up: ‘Hamilton’, ‘Wicked’, ‘Frozen’, ‘Operation Mincemeat’, ‘Mean Girls’, ‘Les Mis’, ‘Next To Normal’, ‘Cabaret’… there may be some hold out that we’ve failed to spot, but basically every single musical showing in London – and a few that are coming up or yet to open – will have a performance slot over its two free days.
Obviously you’re not actually getting the full musical experience – you’re going to get one to two songs from most shows. But they tend to put their bangers to the fore, and regardless it is pretty astounding vale to see professional cast performing some of the greatest songs ever written, all for free.
Early entry will yield a better vantage point (it is understandably very popular) and the absolute best time to go is definitely the first couple of hours on Saturday, when most of the biggest shows perform in advance of that afternoon’s matinee performances. But you’ll have fun all weekend: provided you have a reasonable tolerance of showtunes it’s the best free event in the London calendar, two nine hours of pure musical theatre bliss.
West End Live is at Trafalgar Square, Sat Jun 22 11am-5pm, Sun Jun 23 noon-5pm. See the full line-up here.
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