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Wimbledon Theatre
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. The theatre has approximately 1,700 seats making in the sixth largest venue in London following the London Palladium, Drury Lane, Apollo Victoria, 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. In Autumn 2003, Wimbledon Theatre was bought out by the Ambassador Theatre Group, the second largest theatre owner in London's West End and around the UK. Following a name change to the New Wimbledon Theatre, the venue reopened in February 2004 with Matthew Bourne's production of The Nutcracker. 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 and 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 has produced 8 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.
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