The Victoria Palace Theatre is a west-end theatre located in Victoria Street directly opposite Victoria Railway Station.
The venue began life as a small concert room above the stables of a small hotel and tavern called the Royal Standard Hotel in 1832, on the same site of the present theatre. The building was enlarged by the proprietor, John Moy, and by 1850 it was known locally as Moy's Music Hall.. Alfred Brown took over the reins in 1863, and refurbished the venue, renaming it the Royal Standard Music Hall.
In 1886, the hotel was demolished by which time the train station and next door Grosvenor Hotel, had completely transformed the entire surrounding area into a major transport hub. The railways had started building grand hotels alongside their termini, and added to this was the integration of the underground tube system to the area and the building of Victoria Street. Thomas Dickey, the owner of the music hall had it rebuilt in 1886 along more ambitious lines by Richard Wake.
In 1910, the Royal Standard was demolished, and in its place the current theatre, The Victoria Palace was built at a cost of £12,000. It was designed by architect Frank Matcham and opened in November 1911. Innovative features in the design of the theatre included a sliding roof that cooled the auditorium during intervals in the warm summer months.
The Victoria Palace Theatre continued its musical theatre tradition under the impresario Alfred Buttby by presenting a series of variety shows, which were followed by repertory and revues under later managements. Possibly due to its music hall heritage, plays were not always taken too seriously at the venue, most notably in 1934, when the theatre staged a patriotic play called 'Young England' written by the 83-year-old Rev. Walter Reynolds. The play received such amusingly bad reviews that it eventually became a cult hit and played to packed houses for 278 performances before transferring onto two other west-end venues
Through the 1960s up until 1972, the long-running Black And White Minstrel Show played at the venue throughout, and in 1982, Elizabeth Taylor made her London stage debut at the theatre in a production of 'The Little Foxes'. Another long-running musical at the theatre was 'Buddy- The Buddy Holly Story', which played in London for 13 years from 1989 but transferred over to the Strand Theatre in 1995. . Following this, the theatre presented a series of mostly revivals of famous musicals. until in 2005, 'Billy Elliot The Musical' opened to rave reviews and Olivier awards to become the long-running resident show until the venue closed for refurbishment.
The theatre reopened in December 2017 with the current show, 'Hamilton', a Broadway transfer based on the life of the American revolutionary figure Alexander Hamilton that has broken all box office records.
London theatre tickets to all productions at the Victoria Palace Theatre can be booked securely online through this website.