After the war the West End was dominated by the commercial sector. Farces and who-dunnits became very popular. The most famous being The Mousetrap, an adaptation of an
Agatha Christie novel that opened in 1952 and is still going today - the longest running show in the West End.
T.S. Eliot’s plays which had premiered in the little theatres before the war moved into the West End and the plays of Terence Rattigan remained popular. But the glamorous
productions of the 1950s produced by Binkie Beaumont and H.M. Tennent soon became economically unviable. Actors moved into TV to make more money and West End productions
shrank in size to two or three handers.
Fewer risks are now taken by West End producers and commercial managements with the consequence that productions of new plays have been pushed out to the fringe theatres
and subsidized sector. The rep theatres remain important advocates for new work, where producers test audience reaction before putting up the money for a West End transfer.
Big budget shows are now nearly always musicals with huge casts and extravagant and technologically complex staging.
However the West End is still seen as prestigious. More recently Hollywood stars such as Meryl Streep, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Spacey and Nicole Kidman have starred in West
End shows.
Introduction
The Royal Court Theatre
