Stage Entertainment, the European venue operator, are said to be bidding for the New London Theatre, situated on Drury Lane.

The theatre, which has a 1,100 capacity, is currently owned by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group. It has been available for bids since the beginning of 2008.

There has been a recent closed bidding process, with a one hundred and one year lease available. Now it appears that the European tour operator, Stage Entertainment, is one of the front-runners for the lease on the theatre.

Definitely out of the running is the Royal Shakespeare Company.

The RUG claim that discussions are ongoing with potential bidders, although they have no preference to who wins the race:

We are not in exclusive talks with anyone and are continuing with discussions with several parties.

The asking price of well over £10 million is thought to have put off many of the West End’s most renowned theatre companies. One thing putting potential bidders off is the fact that the theatre’s recent history includes the theatrical flop ‘Gone With the Wind’. Had the theatre just hosted a successful show, the venue would be more attractive to potential suitors.

The Wizard of Oz is one of those magical modern day fairytales that everyone remembers fondly, largely due to the spectacular performance from its star Judy Garland. It’s been 20 years since the Wizard of Oz appeared in a London theatre however, but now it’s back with Sian Brooke taking the role of Dorothy, and wearing those famous red shoes, the shoes that are so difficult to fill.

The new theatre show is scheduled to run until the end of August at the Royal Festival Hall, but has not fared that well with critics.

The Daily Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish lamented:

The awkward truth is that this Wiz lacks the necessary ‘wow’ factor. It’s all perfectly adequate and could have been tremendous; as it is, it feels like a case of wrong time, wrong place.

Other critics have poured scorn on the idea to use Festival Hall for the show and many have stated that Sian Brooke doesn’t live up to the legend that is Judy Garland, but that is hardly fair.

However not everyone had bad things to say about the Wizard of Oz, with the Metro’s Warwick Thompson stating:

It took me over the rainbow.

theatre tickets for the Wizard of Oz are for productions starting at 7:30pm each evening, with Wednesday and weekend matinees at 2:30pm.

If locking yourself in a theatre for a few hours while a woman talks about her divorce, then Dawn French’s ‘My Brilliant Divorce’ might be just what you’re after. Playing at the Apollo theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, My Brilliant Divorce is a one-woman show from Dawn French, by Geraldine Aron.

Naturally as the play stars one of the leading lights of British comedy, the show is full of comedy. However, as the play is about a woman’s divorce, you can expect most of the humour to be directed firmly at the male species, with very little room in the audience for men to hide.

If you’re a tad modest too, you’ll find you’ll blush rather easily at some of the content, which doesn’t befit someone who has played a vicar on our TV screens!

The play focuses on a woman who was ditched by her husband, as so many are, for a younger woman. She’s bitter and angry, but finds that her newfound freedom is liberating. She even contemplates the notion of performing in front of the camera; such is her lack of modesty.

The show lasts for around 90 minutes, and is very much catered towards the female audience.

Getting children interested in the theatre is essential for the survival of the art. After all, if children aren’t exposed to theatre there’ll be little growth in audiences and we’ll face limited injection of talent into the stage itself.

With this in mind, The Society of London Theatre (SOLT) administers Kids Week each year. Kids Week was first created eleven years ago, and is a scheme devised to get more children into theatres and introduced to the arts. The idea behind Kids Week is that for every adult ticket purchased, a child aged between 5 and 16 years old gets admitted to the theatre for free.

When theatre tickets for Kids Week went on sale, over 16,000 theatre tickets were sold on the first day, showing just how popular the promotion is for theatre and for children.

This year Kids Week also received support and coverage from the Daily Telegraph and the Evening Standard. The sort of productions available to see during Kids Week includes comedies, musicals and drama, so there is something for everyone.

Kids Week runs from August 15th to August 29th, and as well as free admission to the theatre for children, it also includes workshops where children can get involved in theatre and the performing arts.

The West End has always been synonymous with lights, as every star of the theatre dreams of one day having their name up in lights. Now they’ll be able to do that much more easily as Westminster City Council has announced its plan to spend £6 million ‘jazzing up’ the West End.

Columns of lights will be setup to light up the theatres in Shaftesbury Avenue, and the actual theatre entrances will also be rejuvenated to distinguish them from other buildings on the street.

For this some custom streetlights have been designed, in the style of traditional lanterns, but with coloured LED lights on the columns. The LED powered columns will signal the beginning and the end of theatre shows by lighting up more brightly. To further mark out the theatre experience, extra lighting will be used just before and after the shows, and at intervals.

The exterior of theatres will also be revamped in the sense that pavements and streets will be decluttered, widened and ‘jazzed up’.

Shaftesbury Avenue has already some work started with new lighting being installed. Cllr Alan Bradley of Theatreland stated about the plans from Westminster City Council:

The West End boasts the highest concentration of theatres in the world and they make a huge contribution to tourism and the economy. These plans will help put the sparkle back into the area and set it apart as a unique entertainment destination and an integral part of what makes the West End so special.

After the work on Shaftesbury Avenue has been completed, work will commence on Cambridge Circus and Coventry Street.