About the Noël Coward Theatre

The New Theatre, as it was first called, opened in March 1903. The actor-manager Sir Charles Wyndham built it on the land behind Wyndham's Theatre, which he had opened four years earlier. It was designed by W. G. R. Sprague, is Grade II listed, and is run by Delfont Mackintosh Theatres, who took over the lease in 2005.

It has had three names. It was the New Theatre until 1973, then the Albery, after Bronson Albery, whose family ran the theatre from 1903 until 1987. It became the Noël Coward Theatre on 1 June 2006, the night Avenue Q opened. The name comes from Noël Coward, whose first West End appearance was on this stage in 1920, in I'll Leave It to You, a play he'd written himself.

Sybil Thorndike created Shaw's Saint Joan here in 1924, John Gielgud had a hit with Richard of Bordeaux in 1933, and during the Second World War the Old Vic and Sadler's Wells companies moved in after their own theatres were bomb-damaged, with Laurence Olivier's Richard III among the productions. Oliver! opened here in June 1960 and ran for 2,618 performances.

In 2019 the bars were restored, and the Grand Circle bar was named Thelma's Bar after the producer Thelma Holt.

Notable past productions

  • The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905), first staged here by Fred Terry and Julia Neilson
  • Saint Joan (1924), with Sybil Thorndike creating the title role
  • Richard of Bordeaux (1933), John Gielgud's hit, 472 performances
  • The Cocktail Party (1950), the London premiere of T. S. Eliot's play
  • The Millionairess (1952), Katharine Hepburn's West End debut
  • Oliver! (1960 to 1967), 2,618 performances, with Ron Moody as Fagin
  • Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1973), Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's early musical
  • A Month in the Country (1994), with Helen Mirren and John Hurt
  • Private Lives (2001), with Lindsay Duncan and Alan Rickman
  • Avenue Q (2006), the first show under the Noël Coward name, which ran for almost three years
  • Photograph 51 (2015), with Nicole Kidman
  • The Inheritance (2018), Matthew Lopez's play inspired by E. M. Forster's Howards End
  • Dear Evan Hansen (2019), its European premiere

More recent productions include Dracula, with Cynthia Erivo, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Comedy About Spies, Slave Play and Cyrano de Bergerac.

Other venues of similar size

  • Lyric Theatre, 938 seats on Shaftesbury Avenue, and like the Noël Coward spread over four levels
  • Apollo Theatre, 844 seats over four levels, also on Shaftesbury Avenue
  • Novello Theatre, 1,085 seats on Aldwych, another four-level theatre designed by Sprague and run by Delfont Mackintosh

About FAQs

What was the Noël Coward Theatre called before?

The Albery Theatre, from 1973 until it was renamed in June 2006, and the New Theatre before that, from when it opened in 1903.

What has been on at the Noël Coward Theatre?

Oliver! in 1960, Avenue Q in 2006 and The Inheritance in 2018 are among its best-known runs, and more recently Dracula, with Cynthia Erivo, and The Importance of Being Earnest.

Who runs the Noël Coward Theatre?

Delfont Mackintosh Theatres, which also runs Wyndham's next door, and the theatre's Box Office and access team.