With somewhat less of a fanfare, the musical Betty Blue Eyes also opened in March for a limited run and is currently extended unti at least October 2011. Betty Blue Eyes is the story of a household surviving in post World War 2 Yorkshire by raising a pig to avoid the bacon  rationing. Betty Blue Blues is in fact the name of the pig!

Ghost The Musical is the big one, just opened in June in London after try out in Manchester and a showcase at West End Live 2011. The dazzling new musical GHOST, is based on the phenomenal Oscar winning Paramount Pictures film of the same name, and features great rock music by Eurythmics writer Dave Stewart with the help of Glenn Ballard. If you only see one new musical this year, go and see Ghost

Lend Me A Tenor is an old fashioned Vaudeville style musical, which transferred from Plymouth and stars Matthew Kelly

London Tube escalators are full of adverts for The Million Dollar Quartet, a story of fame, friendship, discovery, divided loyalties, professional jealousy and incredible music as four of the music industry’s most extraordinary talents, all in their creative prime, made music together for the first and only time in their careers. A true story of the electrifying night in 1956 when Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis came together to make music and ended up making history.

Rock of Ages doesn’t actually start until next month, August 2011, but we had a preview of the soft rock, 1980s style juke box musical at West End Live.

And last but by no means least, we had the opening of Shrek The Musical with Amanda Holden, a major blockbuster of a film and musical which looks set to be a favourite family choice for theatre breaks in London for many years to come.

But then on Sunday 3rd of October, the day after the end of the Barbican run, a third, star-studded Les Miserables Special with elements from the casts of both London versions, will turn up at the enormous O2 venue in London’s Greenwich peninsula Docklands.

These extra Les Miserables are all part of the show’s 25th birthday celebrations.

Les Miserables Theatre Breaks

Happy New Year for 2010 from the Theatre Breaks LTB blog team.

It’s been a great year in London’s West End with some surprise hits and some unfortunate flops as well, and we look forward to 2010 especially with the opening of the Phantom of The Opera sequel Love Never Dies and the new Wizard of Oz. ]]> http://theatrebreaksltb.co.uk/227/happy-new-year-from-theatre-breaks/feed/ 0 http://theatrebreaksltb.co.uk/216/booking-theatre-breaks/ http://theatrebreaksltb.co.uk/216/booking-theatre-breaks/#comments Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:04:06 +0000 http://theatrebreaksltb.co.uk/?p=216 Continue reading →]]> Here are a few tips to bear in mind when booking theatre breaks.

1) Try to be flexible about your dates.

This is really going to help you get to see the show that you want at the the price you can afford so even if there is a special anniversary coming up or something like that it’s well worth investigating several days either side of the exact date. It’s also worth think carefully about whether your London theatre break really needs to be on a weekend or a weekday because the difference can be surprising and it’s not always in the direction that you might think.

2) How important are the seats?

Not all seats are created equal by far, and for some people the experience sitting in the middle of the stalls is much superior to that at the back of the circle. I think it comes down to personal preference and experience though, so think carefuly about your previous theatre experiences and then check out which kind of seats are being offered as part of your theatre break. Some offer “Best seats available” which sounds like it could mean anything but actually that’s one of the better offers. Others offer “Top Tickets”  or “2nd price and 3rd price” but if there is a seating plan then with a little bit of imagination you can get a pretty god idea of what your seats are going to be like. Don’t forget also that there’s a huge difference in the size of some of these London theatres, with quite small intimate vintage theatres in listed building in the heart of theatreland, and then some quite huge auditoriums for the really big shows like Wicked and We Will Rock You.

3) Transport to London.

I know how much people value their own personal space in their car but London really is the exception in our car-dependent world. Getting around cantral London can seem like a jungle to the unaccustomed driver and there’s nearly always nowhere to park. So you’ll end up in some undergound car park that costs nearly as much as a theatre ticket and you’re still miles away from the theatre. So the best bet is usually to arrive by train and the get about on foot, by taxi or even on the tube.

4) Musicals or Plays.

You might have a show in mind when you start looking online but don’t be put off if you can’t get the most famous musical on the dates you planned, there are always new shows coming into the West End and sometimes it’s more fulfilling to go and discover something new that hasn’t been reproduced on tour or elsewhere yet. One of the best things about the London scene is that you can often get to see some very famous actors and actressese performing in classic plays by the great authors, so that’s something to consider as a change from the latest blockbuster music revival with the original Broadway cast.

For more tips and advice to get the most out of London Theatre breaks you might visit the Theatre Breaks Magazine

A lot of people have been posting this video recently and the reason why is clear – Alexia Khadime giving it up for The Wizard And I in a theatre breaks video that was captured at London’s West End Live theatre festival in Leicester Square last Saturday. What’s not to like?

Chicago is one of the most popular shows for theatre breaks in London and manages to keep viable over the years through a mixture of clever promotion, good word of mouth reputation and a succession of stars and cameos to bring fresh interest in each of the cities where Chicago is playing.

**Guaranteed best prices on Hairspray theatre breaks in London**

I wasn’t really thinking about theatre breaks in London when I watched Jonathan Ross on Friday night until Michael Ball came on. I thought he was surprisingly interesting and funny. I suppose I hadn’t thought of him as a character actor before and I was struggling to imagine him in the Divine role but I really warmed to him and by the end of the programme I was starting to think I’d quite like to see him in Hairspray.

The original 1988 John Walters film starred Divine and Ricki Lake. Hairspray is set in Baltimore in 1962. It’s the story of Tracy Turnblad, a fat but beautiful girl with really big hair . She wins a spot on a local TV dance programme becomes a teen icon. But will she be able to change the world and win the boy she loves? What do you think?

It became a cult classic film, the musical version has been running on Broadway since 2002 and now it’s available for theatre breaks in London. It’s been a huge hit, won lots of awards and was made into another film recently (with John Travolta as Edna, the Mom – ooh I’ve got to see that!). Now it’s showing in the West End.

Michael Ball is playing Edna and on Friday night with Jonathon Ross he said the secret would be to not play it as drag but to play Edna as a real woman. I like the sound of that so I went and had a look at the official web site. The music sounds great on the website and you can even sneak a peak of the rehearsals ! The production starts on October 11th and it looks like it should be a massive hit.

If you missed Michael he covers much of the same ground in a video on the production blog. Isn’t it great that so many shows are doing this now? I love reading the ups and downs and watching cast behind the scenes footage. It’s like the extras you get with DVDS

I think this one would be great for a ‘girls’ (who are we kidding?!) weekend, a relaxing train ride down, hit the London shops, and a great, girly night out, hopefully with less of a hangover than the last one! I really prefer to book a whole package when I’m organising London theatre breaks like this because it just makes life so much easier and it’s often cheaper too!

**Click here for guaranteed best prices on Hairspray and other Theatre Breaks in London**

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Summer theatre breaks can be the best kind of summer holiday in the UK for theatre lovers. You don’t have to battle with the weather and discomfort in some dismal seaside resort nor stress about lost baggage, cancelled flights and foreign prices.

London theatreland has the great advantage of being familiar but exciting. Everything you could possibly need is within one or two square miles. And that includes a fantastic riverside and some beautiful green parks. But it’s the unbelievable variety of great shows on offer all in one city that really does it. So you can book a theatre break to one show that you’ve always wanted to see but couldn’t get decent tickets for any other way, and then stay on at the same hotel for a couple of extra nights and get day tickets for one or two other less usual shows all in the same break. Then there are all the other London attractions as well – the museums, art galleries, fabulous world cuisine restaurants, night clubs, sights and experiences all over the huge rambling hive of humanity that is London.