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Ambassadors Theatre (London)

The Ambassadors Theatre (formerly the New Ambassadors Theatre), is a West End theatre located in West Street, near Cambridge Circus on Charing Cross Road in the City of Westminster. It is one of the smallest of the West End theatres, seating a maximum of 444, with 195 people in the dress circle and 251 in the stalls.

Address

West Street
London, WC2
United Kingdom

West End theatre

444

Harry Clarke

5 June 1913 (1913-06-05)

Productions[edit]

Vivien Leigh made her West End debut in the Ambassadors, starring in The Mask of Virtue (1935); this was the play in which Laurence Olivier first saw her perform.[2]


The theatre's most famous production is Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, which showed from 1952 to 1974 before moving next door to St. Martin's Theatre, where it is still running.


After its purchase by the Ambassador Theatre Group under producer Sonia Friedman, productions included Some Explicit Polaroids by Mark Ravenhill, Spoonface Steinberg by Lee Hall, Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett and starring John Hurt, and was the West End's first home of Marie Jones' Stones in His Pockets and The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler.[2]


Recent productions have included the multi-award-winning production of John Doyle's Sweeney Todd which subsequently transferred to Broadway, Ying Tong – A Walk with the Goons, Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, Journey's End and the world première of Kate Betts' On the Third Day which won the Channel 4 television series The Play's the Thing. In 2006, the theatre played host to the landmark revival of Peter Hall's production of Waiting for Godot which ran for a strictly limited autumn season.


Recent productions include the Menier Chocolate Factory production of Little Shop of Horrors, the Bush Theatre's production of Whipping it Up, starring Richard Wilson and Robert Bathurst, and Love Song, starring Cillian Murphy and Neve Campbell (November 2006 to February 2007).


In September 2007, renowned dance show Stomp transferred to the theatre for a ten year run, which had its last performance in January 2018.[7]

Leicester Square

Covent Garden

Guide to British Theatres 1750–1950, John Earl and Michael Sell pp. 98 (Theatres Trust, 2000)  0-7136-5688-3

ISBN

Theatre History