New Wimbledon Theatre

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The New Wimbledon Theatre is situated on The Broadway, Wimbledon, London. It is a five minute walk from Wimbledon rail, tube and tramlink station. It is a ten minute walk from South Wimbledon tube station. This Edwardian theatre is a Grade II listed building, first opened in 1910.

1 Venue statistics
2 Recent history
3 2007 Season
4 External links

[edit] Venue statistics

The theatre has approximately 1,700 seats making it the sixth largest venue in London following the London Palladium, Drury Lane Theatre, Apollo Victoria Theatre, Dominion and Lyceum.

It also contains the smaller New Wimbledon Studio Theatre, which seats up to 70 people in a more intimate and flexible space.

[edit] Recent history

Until 2001, the theatre was owned and operated by the Wimbledon Civic Theatre Trust, on behalf of the London Borough of Merton, who still own the freehold of the building. The trust was responsible for overseeing a multi-million pound refurbishment in the late 1990s, incorporating a brand new backstage area, fly tower and a complete re-seating of the orchestra stalls as well as redecoration of the interior. During this period, the theatre was closed for an entire year. The venue is frequently hired out to television production, with many famous TV series having been shot on site, including The Bill, De-Lovely, Little Britain, Extras (the Aladdin pantomime episode with Les Dennis)

Notably, the venue was the home of ITV's annual televised Christmas pantomime, including:

Jack and the Beanstalk (1998) - starring Julie Walters, Neil Morrissey, Denise van Outen, Adrian Edmondson, Griff Rhys Jones, Paul Merton, Morwenna Banks and Julian Clary.
Aladdin (2000) - Ed Byrne, Patsy Kensit, John Savident, Griff Rhys Jones, Martin Clunes, Ralf Little, Paul Merton, Julian Clary, Billy Murray, Lisa Riley, Meera Syal, Trisha Goddard, Leslie Phillips and S Club 7.
Dick Whittington (2002) - starring Richard Wilson, Harry Hill, James Fleet, Amanda Barrie, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Kevin Bishop, Julian Clary, Vanessa Feltz, Lee Mack, Tina O'Brien, Paul Merton, Debra Stephenson, Jessica Stevenson, Mark Williams and Hear'Say.

Unfortunately, the venue soon fell into financial difficulties in 2003 and was forced to close indefintely. Thanks to many talks between leading producers, councillors and companies, in autumn 2003, Wimbledon Theatre was bought out by the Ambassador Theatre Group, the largest theatre owner in London's West End and second largest in the regions.

Following a name change to the New Wimbledon Theatre, the venue reopened in February 2004 with Matthew Bourne's production of The Nutcracker, and following this, the theatre has gone from strength to strength, with major productions in 2004 and 2005 including Saturday Night Fever, Blood Brothers, Footloose, Jesus Christ Superstar, Fame, Jekyll & Hyde and the London revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats.

It has since played host to a large variety of touring productions, plus the UK launch of Josef Weinberger's UK collection of Disney musicals available to amateur companies throughout the British Isles.

Most recently saw the launch of a brand new UK pantomime company formed from a collaboration between Howard Panter of the Ambassador Theatre Group and David Ian of Live Nation Theatrical and called First Family Entertainment. The company produced eight pantos across the UK for 2005-6, with their flagship production being Cinderella at New Wimbledon, starring Susan Hampshire, Richard Wilson, John Barrowman, Naomi Wilkinson, Peter Duncan and Tim Vine. For 2006, First Family present the premiere of Peter Pan starring [[Happy Days]]' Henry Winkler, Bobby Davro and Sarah Jane Honeywell.