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© Susie Rea

Arts Theatre

This intimate venue is a place to enjoy the fringier side of the West End
  • Theatre | Musicals
  • Covent Garden
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Time Out says

Yup, technically the Arts Theatre is a West End venue, but shows at this smaller, scruffier venue don't have the mega production values of their glitzier theatrical neighbours. Instead of being designed to house commercial work, it started as a 'Theatre Club' in 1927. This meant that its members-only productions bypassed the beady eye of the Lord Chamberlain, who censored all mainstream British theatres at the time, taking a dim view of sex, violence, and slights on the monarchy.

This history lives on in the venue's late 20th century record for championing left-field, alternative productions. 'Waiting For Godot', Tom Stoppard's satirical double-bill 'Dirty Linen and New-Found-Land' and 'The Vagina Monologues' all had their London premieres here. But it's struggled to find similar success in recent years, often hosting musicals that aren’t really up to ‘proper’ West End standards. It's also escaped the wrecking ball several times, most recently when it was threatened with closure in 2006, and there are regular whispers that some kindly mega-producer is planning to buy the place out and give it a good sprucing up.

For now, though, the Arts Theatre is a refreshingly unpretentious and budget-friendly place to see a musical or a comedy show. Its popular cafe bar serves theatre fans who spill out onto the busy Covent Garden streets beyond. The auditorium seats 350 punters over two tiers. And since 2014, a second 60-seater space known as 'Above the Arts' acts as a studio theatre, home to cabaret and short runs by stand up comedians. 

Details

Address
6-7
Great Newport Street
Covent Garden
London
WC2H 7JB
Transport:
Tube: Leicester Square
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What’s on

The Choir of Man

Pitched somewhere between a musical and a night down the pub, Nic Doodson and Andrew Kay’s ‘The Choir of Man’ has been a low-key smash since it opened post-pandemic, clocking up several years of run at the dinky Arts Theatre. Set in a pub entitled The Jungle, the show follows nine men, each of whom embodies some notional masculine archetype – The Poet, The Hardman – but who bond via the medium of an eclectic mix of a cappella pop covers, tapdance, and ‘poetic meditations on the power of community’. 
  • Musicals

Hold On to Your Butts

3 out of 5 stars
There’s nothing specifically Christmassy about this fun, DIY-flavoured spoof run-through of the entire plot of Jurassic Park which is headlining the festive season at Dalston’s Arcola Theatre. But this likeable and deeply silly show nevertheless has the anarchic spirit of panto lingering below the surface. You’re never far from shouting ‘behind you’ at an imaginary dinosaur, or, more accurately, an actor with three cones on his head pretending to be an ill triceratops.  The less you know about Jurassic Park, the more likely you are to be confused as two actors – Jack Baldwin and Laurence Pears – tear through the entire story of the 1993 movie. But at least being lost won’t feel like a slog. The show’s energy and inventiveness is impressive enough to drag audiences through stretches when they’ve lost the plot, which the company recalls with remarkable fidelity while allowing themselves plenty of side gags and improv moments. Charlie Ives acts as an onstage foley artist, giving us live sound effects from dinosaur roars to buzzing electric fences, all using the likes of glass jars, cutlery and a computer keyboard. Leaning into frenetic physical comedy, Baldwin and Pears dash through all the main characters, from Richard Attenborough’s madcap theme-park entrepreneur to Sam Neill’s kid-phobic paleontologist. The doomed lawyer is a red tie tethered around one of their hands; the film’s little-boy character is just a red backpack they carry with them.  If you’re looking for...
  • Drama
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