Culture and Performing Arts
Britain's arts scene is the envy of the world; drama, music and ballet are alive and well, and you will have to queue for tickets to many attractions. Britain is also a breeding ground of light entertainment. The stand up comic, the TV soap, and the pop musician add their flavours to the healthy melting pot of British culture.
London's West End has a special magic and money-making mastery. This is Theatreland where the glittering lights of more than forty theatres transform Soho and Covent Garden by night into a glamorous fantasy world. The curtains go up on new dramas and old standards, on lavish musicals and occasional variety shows in theatres whose very names are legendary - Her Majesty's, Drury Lane, Garrick, Lyric, Apollo, Palladium. In the world of show business, success breeds success, demonstrated most vividly in the case of the Mouse Trap, the longest running theatrical show in history. Cats, may yet challenge it. The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, heading for its first decade, is the longest running musical show in the West End. One provincial theatre famous throughout the world is the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Sometimes the history of the theatre is an attraction in itself like the three-century-old Theatre Royal in Drury Lane where King Charles II first glimpsed the young actress Nell Gwyn. Sometimes the design of the theatre surpasses the most elaborate stage set. The London Palladium sets the scene for the annual Royal Command Performances. The spruiking barrow boys of Covent Garden have made way for the mellifluous voices of the Royal Opera.
The home of English ballet is also Covent Garden. The Royal Ballet ranks with the greatest in the world. Britain has Europe's busiest concert scene with five resident orchestras in London and many more of world class standard in other cities. Summer visitors are in the right place at the right time for
 the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts (The Proms) at Royal Albert Hall. The Last Night of the Proms in mid-September has become a musical tradition and
patriotic pageant.The London Symphony's home is the Barbican Arts Centre in Silk Street. The Barbican fills a giant bomb crater left after the last war with a mixed residential and arts complex. London's South Bank is a thriving arts environment with
theatres, restaurants, concert halls and conference facilities centred around Royal Festival Hall, one of the city's major concert halls.
Pop concerts are enthusiastically patronised at the Hammersmith Odeon in West London. However, when the mega stars of music perform (whether opera or contemporary) the venue moves to Wembley Stadium which can hold 78,000 people. At local level, theatre pubs, street busking and local halls keep the old British Music Hall tradition alive.
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