The Theatre Royal Haymarket, is a West End theatre in The Haymarket (a street south of Piccadilly Circus) located in the City of Westminster. It dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use. Samuel Foote acquired the lease in 1747, and in 1766 he gained a royal patent to play legitimate drama (meaning spoken drama, as opposed to opera, concerts or plays with music) in the summer months.

The original building was slightly further north in the same street. It has been at its current location since 1821, when it was redesigned by John Nash (he built the present Buckingham Palace and numerous other city projects). It is a Grade I listed building, with a seating capacity of 888. The freehold of the theatre is owned by the Crown Estate.

The Haymarket has been the site of several significant innovations in theatre. In 1873, it was the venue for the first scheduled matinée performance, establishing a custom soon followed in theatres elsewhere. Six years later, its auditorium was reconstructed, and the stage was enclosed in the first use of the picture frame proscenium. In earlier playhouses the audience tended to surround the stage from the flanks, but the picture frame proscenium presents the stage through a cutout rectangle (with a curtain drawing and withdrawing). This means that audiences are ranked in tiers from the front, rather than surrounding the stage from three sides (as they do in Elizabethan theatre of Shakespeare's Globe)

Its managers have included John Sleeper Clarke, brother-in-law of John Wilkes Booth, who quit America after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.


Theatre Royal Haymarket, Haymarket, London, SW1Y 4HT

Call:    0845 481 1870
Call:    020 7930 8890