Fortune Theatre

Fortune Theatre, West End theatre, situated in Russell Street, Covent Garden, London. Named after the famous playhouse of the early 17th century belonging to Edward Alleyn and Philip Henslowe, the Fortune Theatre was built for playwright Laurence Cowen and seated 424 people. It opened on November 8, 1924 and was the first theatre to open after World War I. The opening run was of Cowen’s play The Sinners.

In the early years the theatre did not house many notable successes and it closed during World War II, only to open again in 1946 to more amateur productions. However, in 1954 it presented Joyce Grenfell Requests the Pleasure, which proved popular, and in 1957 there was a revue of the Flanders and Swann musical At the Drop of a Hat, which ran for 733 performances. Since then the theatre has had success with various productions such as Wait a Minim (1964), The Promise (1967) by Alexei Arbuzov with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench, and a series of thrillers in the 1970s: Suddenly at Home by Francis Durbridge, Sleuth by Anthony Shaffer, and Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie. The 1980s saw popular productions of the musical Mr Cinders and the John Godber play Up ‘n’ Under, and then in 1989 the curtain went up on yet another thriller: The Woman in Black (an adaptation by Stephen Mallatratt of the book by Susan Hill), which in 2001 celebrated its 5,000th performance in London's West End.