How to Get to Regent's Park Open Air Theatre

Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, The Regent's Park, Inner Circle, London NW1 4NU. what3words: hers.echo.mouse.

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Where the entrance is

You do not walk up to a theatre frontage on a street. You go into the park and in through the Box Office in Queen Mary's Garden, reached along the path beside the Regent's Bar and Kitchen. Everyone leaves afterwards by the Theatre Exit Gate onto the Inner Circle.

By tube

Baker Street is the one to aim for, about ten minutes' walk, and it is on five lines: Bakerloo, Circle, Hammersmith & City, Jubilee and Metropolitan. Regent's Park on the Bakerloo and Great Portland Street on the Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan are the other two within reach.

The walk from Baker Street: out onto Marylebone Road and turn left, past Madame Tussauds, then left at the next set of lights into York Gate. Straight across the lights, along York Bridge, and on to the Inner Circle. Through the large gates, keep going straight, and the theatre is on your left.

Signposting inside the park is limited, because it is a Royal Park rather than a venue's own approach. The theatre publishes a real-time walking video of this route, which also shows the walk back to Baker Street after the show.

By train

Marylebone is about 15 minutes' walk to the west. Euston is about 30 minutes to the east.

By bus

Towards Baker Street: the 13, 18, 27, 30, 74, 82, 113, 139, 189 and 274, leaving you the same ten-minute walk as the tube.

Along Marylebone Road: the 18, 27, 30, 205 and 453, and the N18 at night.

Baker Street has no step-free route from platform to street, and the nearest step-free station is Euston, so the theatre recommends the bus for anyone avoiding steps. Access has the rest.

By car

Parking is on the street, and the theatre says there is often space on Chester Road. The Inner Circle, Chester Road and the Outer Circle are free after 6:30pm, which covers an evening performance.

Before that it is Pay and Display: 70p per 15 minutes, Monday to Saturday 9am to 6:30pm, four hours maximum, and 50p per 15 minutes on Sundays and bank holidays, ten hours maximum. Blue Badge holders and motorcycles park free Monday to Saturday, for up to four hours. The speed limit on the Circles is 20mph, and there is no congestion charge: the park sits outside the zone.

No coach parking.

By bike

There are bike racks inside the theatre grounds, and that is where to use them. Do not chain a bike to the park railings or leave it outside the gate, because Queen Mary's Garden is locked at dusk and you will not get back to it. Queen Mary's Garden is walking only, and Lime bikes may not be used anywhere in Regent's Park. The nearest Santander Cycle Hire docking station is by the tennis courts on York Bridge.

What time to arrive

Gates open 90 minutes before the performance, and the picnic lawn is open for all of it. On a decent evening that hour and a half is the best part of coming here. If you are eating, come when the gates open.

If you are not eating, there is no need to come early. The early gates are there for the food, the drinks and the lawn rather than a queue, and on a grey evening you lose nothing by skipping them. Allow the ten-minute walk from Baker Street and a moment for the bag check at the gate.

Ninety minutes on a lawn is a different proposition in the rain, so check the forecast before you decide when to set off. The weather route has what happens if it turns once you are here.

Latecomers cannot be guaranteed a way in. The theatre will try to admit you at a suitable break, and its reason for not simply opening a door is specific to this building: the auditorium is intimate enough that anyone walking in is visible to the performers. The same applies if you leave part-way through. And Queen Mary's Garden is locked after dark, so for a late arrival at an evening performance the Box Office entrance may already be shut.