Pre-Theatre Meals Option 1 – valid Monday – Thursday. Ticket normally £56.00 and dinner at Livebait – £62.50 Combine a two course meal from the pre theatre menu at Livebait with a top price ticket for £62.50 per person. Restaurant reservation: 18:00 Show: 19:30 About the restaurant: Livebait has found the winning formula in combining the finest fish and seafood in town, with an intimate, friendly ambience to make this one of the UK’s most popular fish restaurants. Sample Menu Option 2 – valid Monday – Thursday. Ticket normally ?56.00 and dinner at Moti Mahal – £69.00 Combine a two course meal from the pre theatre menu at Moti Mahal with a top price ticket for £69.00 per person. Restaurant reservation: 18:00 Show: 19:30 About the Restaurant: Moti Mahal is the chic London outpost of the celebrated Delhi restaurant which opened in 1959. ‘Un unexpected delight’ (Harden’s guide) Moti Mahal is presenting its menu the Grand Trunk Road. Inspired by the culinary roots of rural India particularly along the famed Grand Trunk Road, Chef Anirudh Arora has brought to us time honored dishes and recipes. By accentuating new tastes and flavors from India’s richly woven history, the new menu at Moti Mahal is a feast for the senses. A perfect setting with curved glass-fronted kitchen and gleaming copper bar and an attentive service will transform your meal in a memorable experience plus is perfect before a show. Sample Menu Option 3 – valid Monday – Thursday. Ticket normally ?56.00 and dinner at Chez Gerard The Opera Terrace – £62.50 Combine a two course meal from the pre- theatre menu at The Opera Terrace with a top price ticket for £62.50 per person. (Post-Theatre option after the show available) Restaurant reservation: pre-theatre 18:00, post-theatre 21:30 Show: 19:30 About the Restaurant: If you are going to dine anywhere in Covent Garden, make it Chez Gérard Opera Terrace. Located in London’s most famous piazza and surrounded by dozens of shops, theatres and attractions a meal at Chez Gérard is the perfect way to break, or end your day. Enjoy the sights, smells and sounds of France in the conservatory restaurant. Sample Menu
Price: £62.50
Lillian Hellman’s 1934 play The Children’s Hour is set in a boarding school in 1930s New England run by two women, Karen Wright and Martha Dobie. When a student runs away from the school, they become entangled in a story of deceit, shame and courage. A potent exploration of a culture of fear, The Children’s Hour was banned in several cities in America and also in London, though it did receive its UK premiere there in 1936. This production of The Children’s Hour stars Keira Knightley and Elisabeth Moss as Karen and Martha. Knightley, who made her West End debut in The Misanthrope last year, is known the world over for her films, which include Atonement, The Pirates Of The Caribbean trilogy, Pride And Prejudice, Bend It Like Beckham and new release Never Let Me Go. Moss is an American actress who stars in the popular drama Mad Men and was previously seen in The West Wing. She appeared on Broadway in 2008 in Speed-The-Plow. The Children’s Hour director Ian Rickson is the former Artistic Director of the Royal Court whose vast career includes recent hit play Jerusalem
Million Dollar Quartet is a new musical inspired by a true event in which four legendary musicians – Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis – got together for a session at Sun Records in Memphis. A stroy of fame, friendship, discovery, divided loyalties, professional jealousy and incredible music, Million Dollar Quartet tells of the moment when 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. The date was 4 December 1956. Million Dollar Quartet has a score that includes over 20 of the greatest records ever written, including Blue Suede Shoes, I Walk The Line, Fever, Great Balls Of Fire, Hound Dog, and Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On.
The world premiere of a new full-length ballet created byChristopher Wheeldon for The Royal Ballet is a major highlight of the entire Season. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland will bring a famous story and its equally famous characters to the ballet stage. The Victorian childhood of Lewis Carroll’s Alice and her encounters with extraordinary people, strange creatures and unusual events gives The Royal Ballet an entire new world to create, and also gives a great chance to see the whole Company on stage in new guises. The music – the first new, full-length ballet score for The Royal Ballet for 20 years- is by Joby Talbot and will be conducted by Barry Wordsworth, Music Director of The Royal Ballet. With a scenario by Nicholas Wright(his adaptations have included His Dark Materials at the NT), and designs by the internationally acclaimed Bob Crowley, this is a compelling creative team indeed. Not surprisingly, the production will draw upon the full resources of the Company and the Royal Opera House in what is a major addition to the ballet repertory and a must-see event of the year.
A young Playboy model, an octogenarian billionaire husband, intrusive media fascination and a tragically early death. This is a roller-coaster of a real contemporary life for a blockbuster of a contemporary opera by the acclaimed opera composerMark-Anthony Turnage (Greek and The Silver Tassie) and librettist Richard Thomas (Jerry Springer: the Opera). The story of Anna Nicole Smith is under the brilliant and idiosyncratic direction of Richard Jones and the baton of Antonio Pappano, Music Director of The Royal Opera, to make this a major event of the Royal Opera Season. Sex, extreme language and drug abuse are part of the opera after all, they were ingredients in a life that went from the dubious glamour of the sex symbol, through long and vicious legal struggles to a fatal overdose. How Anna Nicole was treated and how she was viewed is as much a reflection of the society that hounded her as of her own feelings and ambitions Eva-Maria Westbroek creates what is a challenging and complex central role. This new opera is provocative in its themes, exciting in its bravura style and thrilling with its sheer contemporary nerve. Anna Nicole Smith’s life made the news you can bet this world premiere will too.
The Royal Opera’s Die Zauberfl has quickly established itself as a clear and classic staging of Mozart’s great late work. David McVicar’s interpretation portrays beautifully both the story and the wealth of Enlightenment themes of this favourite masterpiece: the search for wisdom and virtue has seldom had so beguiling a presentation. From such detail as the extraordinary flying machine of the three boys to the panoramic night which finally gives way to blazing sun this is a production of impressive imagery. It brings alive the contrasts of darkness and light, the comic and the impassioned, the down-to-earth and the mystic. With this revival Colin Davisand David Syrus share the conducting for a score rich in well-known music. There is the memorable directness of Papageno’s songs and the virtuoso coloratura of the Queen of the Night, while the lyrical arias of Tamino and Pamina complement the stately music of Sarastro and the temple. A fine cast of singers both new and returning to the production will make this an especially good revival of one of opera’s greatest works.
Il barbiere di Siviglia has all the ingredients for comic chaos: an imprisoned young woman, her lecherous guardian and her young noble suitor. And there is Figaro irrepressible and inventive as he schemes to get the right couple together and the wrong man well away from his ward. This revival by The Royal Opera brings together a wonderful cast in a production that is full of action, bright with colour and high on humour. The directors Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier are famous for matching perceptive wit to subtle interpretation, and in this famous opera they have not just a funny story and great characters, but ever-popular music too. Rossini’s verve, lyricism and virtuoso brilliance are at their most exciting, whether in the arias or the great ensembles. This has long been a bel canto classic and one of the great operas to know, and this revival is the perfect way to indulge in a familiar favourite or discover the delight of opera for the first time. Sung in Italian with English surtitles
Family fun, beautiful dance and generous helpings of colour, wit and charm. Matthew Hart’s wonderfully inventive version of Peter and the Wolf, choreographed for The Royal Ballet School, has an energy all its own as it portrays the scenes of young Peter and his naively valiant attempts at hunting. Peter’s Grandfather, a cat, a duck even the forest trees and greenery act out the events that leave Peter triumphant and the wolf his captive. The delightful Tales of Beatrix Potter is danced by The Royal Ballet. Brilliant characterizations with detailed designs and costumes bring to life such lovable figures as Jemima Puddle-Duck, the dapper frog Jeremy Fisher, and the irrepressible Peter Rabbit. It is a perfect end to a wonderful festive programme for the whole family.
Barbershop’s funniest quartet return to Trafalgar Studios, in a double award-winning new show that follows international tours and a BBC Radio 4 broadcast. God summons four dastardly horsemen to unleash total destruction, but unfortunately Beth turns up instead of Death. Cue mistaken identity, four-part harmony and at least one hobby horse. Barbershopera played to rave reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe and on a previous season in London’s West End. They won Best Lyrics in the Musical Theatre Matters awards three years running.
Leslie Jordan, that small man and giant scene stealer, is one of the funniest men in America. He has created an outrageous tell-all that weaves together a hilarious collection of true life stories (which are also the basis for his popular memoir, My Trip Down The Pink Carpet, recently published by Simon & Schuster). From small-town USA to the pink carpet of Hollywood – My Trip Down The Pink Carpet tells the unlikely tale of one of America?s true comic icons. With $1,200 sewn into his underpants, Leslie – who describes himself as “the gayest man I know” – boarded a Greyhound bus bound for L.A. and never looked back. Filled with comically overwrought childhood agonies, dangerous temptations, and revealing celebrity encounters – from Boy George to George Clooney – My Trip Down The Pink Carpet delivers a laugh-out-loud take on Hollywood, fame, addiction, gay culture, and learning to love oneself.