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Wilton’s is a grand dame of an entertainment venue. It’s known as the ‘world’s oldest surviving music hall’, and the East End beauty has really seen some things. It opened in 1859, was destroyed by a fire in 1877, then East London Methodist Mission owned it for a bit, and by the late 1950s, the building was being used as a rag-sorting warehouse. At one point Spike Milligan and some other fans of Wilton’s stepped in to help save it, and after a long period of remaining derelict, the hall underwent repairs and gradually reopened for performances in the late 1990s. Then it had a huge £4 million revamp and officially reopened as a functioning music hall in 2015.
So, it’s fair to say Wilton’s knows a thing or two about how to make a comeback, and it will be doing just that on Friday May 28, having undergone yet another makeover during lockdown. New seats have been installed inside the theatre, and each show will have an intimate capacity of just over 100 people.
The hall will be recommencing performances with a special socially distanced programme of theatre, opera, magic and spoken word. There’ll be dark clownery with a production of Justin Butcher's one-man play ‘Scaramouche Jones’, a time-travelling magic act by Morgan & West and a performance of ‘Black Is the Colour of My Voice’ a play written and performed by Apphia Campbell, inspired by Nina Simone.
Wilton’s CEO Holly Kendrick said that, ‘It has been an enormously difficult year, but we cannot wait to reopen and to welcome audiences back to our magical East End building.’
You can’t keep Wilton’s down, but we’d like to see those doors stay open this time, so have a gander at the new programme here.
Want more? Here’s our pick of the best new plays, shows and musicals coming to London’s theatres in 2021.