On stage tonight
Every show currently performing at a tracked venue, weighted by the size of the house it's playing in.
15 of 245 shows have been running 2 years or more, but they hold 13% of the seats — long-runners cluster in the biggest houses, so they take up more of what London can actually sell than a headcount suggests.
| Venue type | Shows | Seats | Share of seats |
|---|---|---|---|
| subsidised | 160 | 75,857 | 58% |
| west end | 46 | 50,481 | 39% |
| fringe | 16 | 2,409 | 2% |
| commercial | 23 | 1,980 | 2% |
Longest running, still on
Measured from opening night to today.
| 74.0 yr | The Mousetrap St Martin's Theatre | opened 25 Nov 1952 |
| 40.1 yr | Phantom of the Opera His Majesty's Theatre | opened 9 Oct 1986 |
| 27.0 yr | Disney's The Lion King Lyceum Theatre | opened 19 Oct 1999 |
| 20.1 yr | Wicked Apollo Victoria Theatre | opened 27 Sep 2006 |
| 14.9 yr | Matilda The Musical Cambridge Theatre | opened 24 Nov 2011 |
| 12.1 yr | The Play That Goes Wrong Duchess Theatre | opened 3 Sep 2014 |
| 5.2 yr | Hamilton Victoria Palace Theatre | opened 19 Aug 2021 |
| 5.2 yr | MAMMA MIA! Novello Theatre | opened 25 Aug 2021 |
| 5.1 yr | Les Misérables Sondheim Theatre | opened 25 Sep 2021 |
| 5.1 yr | SIX Vaudeville Theatre | opened 29 Sep 2021 |
How long a run lasts
Completed runs only. Median rather than average, because a handful of decade-long West End runs would drag a mean far above anything typical.
| Venue type | Typical run | Longest tenth | Runs recorded |
|---|---|---|---|
| west end | 82 days | 400 days | 160 |
| fringe | 5 days | 27 days | 817 |
| subsidised | 4 days | 37 days | 3726 |
| commercial | 4 days | 12 days | 2996 |
A fringe run is measured in days and a West End run in months — these are different businesses sharing a word. Read the counts in the last column with care: they reflect how much history has been researched for each kind of venue, not how much work each kind actually stages.
Longest completed runs
The longest runs on record that have since closed.
| 33.8 yr | The Woman in Black Fortune Theatre | 7 Jun 1989 – 4 Mar 2023 |
| 10.3 yr | Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Palace Theatre | 7 Jun 2016 – 20 Sep 2026 |
| 7.5 yr | Tina: The Tina Turner Musical Aldwych Theatre | 21 Mar 2018 – 13 Sep 2025 |
| 4.6 yr | Back to the Future: The Musical Adelphi Theatre | 20 Aug 2021 – 12 Apr 2026 |
| 3.9 yr | Come from Away Phoenix Theatre | 1 Feb 2019 – 7 Jan 2023 |
| 3.3 yr | & Juliet Shaftesbury Theatre | 20 Nov 2019 – 25 Mar 2023 |
| 3.2 yr | Mary Poppins Prince Edward Theatre | 23 Oct 2019 – 8 Jan 2023 |
| 2.4 yr | Jersey Boys Trafalgar Theatre | 28 Jul 2021 – 4 Jan 2024 |
| 2.0 yr | MJ the Musical Prince Edward Theatre | 6 Mar 2024 – 28 Feb 2026 |
| 2.0 yr | Mrs Doubtfire Shaftesbury Theatre | 12 May 2023 – 26 Apr 2025 |
When shows open
Every recorded opening, pooled by month of the year — so this is the shape of the theatrical calendar, not a timeline.
Openings are steadiest around Oct (918) and thinnest in Dec (297). December is when theatres are running the Christmas shows that opened in November, rather than starting new ones.