Dominion Theatre
Book We Will Rock You at the Dominion Theatre
Theatre build date
1929
History:
Although it is often stated that the Dominion theatre was originally a cinema, it was in fact built and used as a theatre when it opened in 1929. However, its first two productions, the musicals Follow Through and Silver Wings were tremendous failures and a variety season with the legendary Maurice Chevalier was a surprising flop.
In 1930, only a year after it opened, the Dominion Theatre was converted into a cinema, and underwent a number of changes. Various parts of the theatre were converted into offices and in 1958, an enormous new screen and projector were installed. This resulted in the Upper Circle being closed, cutting the Dominion’s seating capacity from a mighty 2835 to a less-mighty-but-still-impressive 2007.
Fifty years on, the Upper Circle has still not been reopened; the last time it was used was for a five night run of concerts by Judy Garland in 1957. Live concert performances had been sporadically inserted into the cinema schedule from the time of the Dominion’s conversion, but it was reopened as a theatre in 1981, staging large scale musical productions ever since.
Notable stage productions since the theatre was reopened have included the musical adaptation of the Australian women’s prison drama Prisoner Cell Block H (1989) and a new production of Barnum (1992). We Will Rock You has been drawing audiences into the Dominion Theatre since 2002.
Hauntings:
Staff and audience members over the years have reported sightings of a brewery worker (the Dominion Theatre is built on the site of Meux’s Horse Shoe Brewery which traded through the 1800’s before it was demolished in 1922), as well as hearing a child giggling (after the brewery was demolished, the site was briefly home to O’Brien’s Fun Fair). There has also been much reported poltergeist activity throughout the theatre.
Previously showing:
Grease (2001)
Notre Dame De Paris (2000)
Disney’s Beauty & The Beast (1997)
Close to:
Centre Point
The British Museum
Contact Details
Dominion Theatre
Tottenham Court Road
W1P 0AQ
For all ticket enquiries, call:
0871 789 1004
Map
Facilities
Theatre capacity:
2,007
Stage door location:
Stage door is to the rear of the building on Bainbridge Street.
Theatre layout:
The Dominion Theatre has two levels of vast seating (there is a third level but this has been closed since 1958), and fantastic views are offered throughout the theatre. The production itself uses the width of the stage to great effect, and so only a few seats in the back two rows of the Stalls (YY and ZZ) that are slightly affected by the overhang from the Circle. However, any obstructions from here only last a few seconds as they depend on stage movement; you won’t miss anything vital at all.
The price differences in the Circle are based on distance from the stage, but because the stage and set are wide rather than high, again, most of the seats offer clear, unobstructed. The seats in the stalls bottleneck slightly in the front section (rows M to A) so however central or sidelined your seats are, there are no negative effects to your view of the show.
Air conditioned:
No.
