London Astoria

The Astoria Theatre, London Astoria was also a venue that was located to the year 2009 in the Charing Cross Road No. 157 in the City of Westminster in London.

History

The building was built in 1893 as a department store in the canner Crosse & Blackwell. In the 1920s, the house was converted into a movie theater with 2,000 seats, additionally equipped with a dance hall in the basement and under the name Astoria Theatre. Among others, Michael Todd's film in 80 Days premiered there in July 1957, as the world and shown the film The Fall of the Roman Empire in March 1964 for the first time.

The operating theater in Astoria Theatre was set in 1976, the house remodeled, redesigned the auditorium and designed for live performances. The first production was played Elvis the musical with PJ Proby and Shakin 'Stevens in the lead roles. It followed the stage version of the play Grease with Tracey Ullman and Sue Pollard in 1978 and the less successful musical Beatlemania in 1979. During the 1980s, the theater was rebuilt again and expanded to include a restaurant business. This was followed by the shows Wild, Wild Women and Yakety Yak and jukebox. In 1984, Andrew Lloyd Webber produced the first musical The Hired Man by Howard Goodall at the Astoria Theatre. The piece, however, was not very successful and was only played 164 performances. Another attempt to get the theater operation to continue with the play Lennon failed in 1985.

Then the Astoria Theatre has been a venue for live concerts by international artists such as Black Sabbath, Blur, The Cranberries, Manic Street Preachers, Nirvana, Prince, Tangerine Dream, U2, Amy Winehouse or Eminem. In the basement of the building there is a night club with the name Bang established.

The house was closed in 2009 and the building torn down in favor of the London rail project Crossrail.

Discography (selection)

Numerous concerts of famous artists were recorded at the Astoria Theatre, and released on CD or DVD.