Tin Machine 1990-91: Second album and tour what was the second album? Tin Machine II album. what songs were on it? I don't know. where did they tour? From 5 October 1991 to 17 February 1992, the group undertook a larger tour, known as the It's My Life Tour. when was the album released? 1991, did it do well in the charts? The album was described as "just as impure and twisted [as their first album], but more R&B and less abrasive." who sang on it? Bowie did they go on any other tours? From 5 October 1991 to 17 February 1992, the group undertook a larger tour, known as the It's My Life Tour.
were there any other performances?
Besides the tour known as the It's My Life Tour, were there any other performances by Tin Machine?
The group then went on hiatus while Bowie conducted his solo Sound+Vision Tour. In December 1990, Bowie split from EMI. Hunt Sales said that EMI "kind of freaked out a little bit at the strident, single-less Tin Machine debut", which partially explained why Bowie switched music labels. In March 1991, the band signed to Victory Music, a new label launched by JVC and distributed worldwide by London Records and Polygram, and recorded more new material. This was combined with tracks from the Sydney sessions to form the Tin Machine II album. The album was described as "just as impure and twisted [as their first album], but more R&B and less abrasive." Gabrels explained the change between the first and second album was because by the second album, "we knew one another as musicians. ... It wasn't as dense. And we actually left more room, I think for David to come up with some interesting melodies. There was more room for vocals on this record."  In late 1991 Bowie reiterated that he was still happy being in the band during that time, stating "I'm content. ... I'm deriving a great deal of fulfillment from working with Tin Machine", and band-mate Gabrels agreed, saying "we're doing exactly what we wanted to do." During press performances for songs on the album, Gabrels played his guitar with a vibrator and for a performance on BBC's "Top of the Pops", who banned the use of the vibrator, he mimed playing his guitar with a chocolate eclair.  From 5 October 1991 to 17 February 1992, the group undertook a larger tour, known as the It's My Life Tour. The band was joined on this tour by guitarist Eric Schermerhorn. On 23 November 1991, the band was the musical guest during Saturday Night Live's 17th season. CANNOTANSWER
press performances for songs on the album,
Tin Machine were a British–American hard rock supergroup formed in 1988, notable for being fronted by English singer-songwriter David Bowie. The band consisted of Bowie on lead vocals, sax, and guitar; Reeves Gabrels on guitar and vocals; Tony Fox Sales on bass and vocals; and Hunt Sales on drums and vocals. Tony and Hunt had previously performed alongside Bowie as part of Iggy Pop's backing band during his 1977 tour for The Idiot. Kevin Armstrong played additional guitar and keyboards on the band's first studio album and first tour, and American guitarist Eric Schermerhorn played on the second tour and live album Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby (1992).

Drummer Hunt Sales said that the band's name "reflects the sound of the band," and Bowie stated that he and his band members joined up "to make the kind of music that we enjoyed listening to" and to rejuvenate himself artistically.

The band recorded two studio albums and one live album before dissolving in 1992, after which Bowie returned to his solo career. By the end of 2012, they had reportedly sold two million albums. Bowie would later credit his time with Tin Machine as instrumental in revitalising his career after the 1980s.

History

1987–88: Band genesis
The album Never Let Me Down (1987) and subsequent Glass Spider Tour had left critics unimpressed, and Bowie was aware of his low standing. Eager to return to making music for himself rather than the mainstream audience he had acquired following the Let's Dance album, 
Bowie looked around for collaborators to work with. He briefly worked with Bon Jovi producer Bruce Fairbairn in Los Angeles, recording a few tracks, including a demo of "Lucy Can't Dance" (which was eventually re-recorded and released on Bowie's 1993 solo album Black Tie White Noise) and a version of Bob Dylan's song "Like A Rolling Stone", but this did not bear much fruit, and the Dylan cover was passed to his friend Mick Ronson, where it was released on his posthumous album Heaven and Hull (1994). Soon after, Bowie began collaborating with Reeves Gabrels, who pushed the singer to rediscover his experimental side.

Bowie and Gabrels had initially met through Gabrels' then-wife Sara Terry, who was part of the press staff for the North American leg of Bowie's 1987 Glass Spider world tour. The two men had struck up a friendship when Gabrels visited at several tour venues. Notably, their relationship began as a social one, as Gabrels didn't mention that he himself was a musician. Common interests in popular culture and the visual arts provided more than enough to talk about, Gabrels explained in later interviews, and also because he was in his wife's workplace, he felt it wasn't appropriate to bring up his own music. At the tour's end, Bowie kindly asked Terry if he could do anything for her. In response, Terry gave Bowie a tape of Gabrels' guitar playing. Months later, after listening to the tape, Bowie phoned Gabrels to invite him to get together to play and write. Bowie told him that he felt he had "lost his vision" and was looking for ways to get it back. After a month working together, Gabrels asked Bowie what he wanted of him, and, according to Gabrels, Bowie said "Basically, I need somebody that can do a combination of Beck, Hendrix, Belew and Fripp, with a little Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert King thrown in. Then, when I’m not singing, you take the ball and do something with it, and when you hand the ball back to me, it might not even be the same ball."

The first public fruits of Bowie and Gabrels working together came with a new arrangement by Gabrels of the song "Look Back in Anger" which Bowie had written with Brian Eno in 1979 for the album Lodger. The occasion was a benefit show at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) on 1 July 1988 at which Bowie had been invited to perform with the avant-garde dance troupe La La La Human Steps. Bowie sang, played and danced with troupe members while in lighted grottoes upstage three musicians (Gabrels on guitar, Kevin Armstrong on guitar, and Erdal Kızılçay on bass) played the new  minute score that Gabrels created from the 3-minute song; the new material included drums programmed by Kızılçay. "We went into the studio to rearrange it," said Bowie in a filmed interview; "I like the hard-edged wall of guitar sound that we put into it."

Gabrels recalled that early on, they weren't sure who they'd work with. They discussed working with Terry Bozzio on drums and Percy Jones on bass. But Bowie, who had run into Tony Sales in Los Angeles at a wrap party for his Glass Spider Tour, convinced Tony to call his brother Hunt so they could work together again, as Tony and Hunt had performed with David Bowie in support of Iggy Pop in the late 1970s. Tony recalled that Bowie was "thinking about getting a band together — something together. He didn't know exactly what he wanted to do, but he wanted Hunt and I to meet Reeves and maybe we could all write together, come up with something."

Bowie himself was surprised with how things came together with the band, saying, "I'd never wanted to be in a band until we got together. And as we were getting together, it wasn't really occurring to me that this is what I wanted to do. It took a week or so of actually being in the studio and working, and then I think we fully realized the potential, musically, for what we were doing and wanted to stick with it. I was quite happy to go off and make a solo album. I was quite excited about a couple of things I was doing, which I brought into the band and which were irrevocably changed. But that's the nature of the band."

Bowie was pleased that the band members clicked, calling the ease at which the personalities came together "inspired guesswork". Hunt and Tony, the two sons of comic Soupy Sales, kept the mood jovial during recording sessions and interviews. Bowie later rejected the idea that Reeves, Hunt and Tony were backing members of his band. "The Sales brothers would never accept having another boss. They are far too stubborn and aware of their own needs. They're not in the market to be anybody's backing band, either of them. You do not fuck with the Sales brothers, or Reeves Gabrels." Gabrels said that Bowie came in one day while the group was first forming and said, "I think this has got to be a band. Everybody's got input. Everybody's writing. You guys don't listen to me anyway." The band split profits four ways, no one was on a salary and each member paid for his own expenses. Bowie also clarified that "the band will cease to exist the moment it ceases to be a musical experience for any of us. None of us wanted to get into the kind of situation where you find yourself making albums because you're contracted to." The group setup allowed Bowie a certain level of anonymity, and to that end, Bowie stipulated that all four members divide interviews equally between them and that in the cases where he was interviewed, that another member of the band be present as well. He made a point to clarify that he didn't invite the others to join "his" band, rather, "the band literally came together."

The Sales brothers moved the tone of the sessions away from art-rock and more towards hard rock, and Bowie looked to one of his favorite bands at the time, Pixies, for inspiration. The Sales brothers heckled Bowie into greater spontaneity, with most songs recorded in one take, and lyrics left unpolished, thus giving the band a ragged, punk rock edge. On tour, Bowie said of the band and its music, "This is not music to get up and have breakfast to by any means. And we're not the most comfortable band in the world to watch. If you're looking for a dance band, we ain't it."

In contemporary interviews, the band claimed their musical influences were Gene Krupa, Charlie Mingus, Jimi Hendrix, Glenn Branca, Mountain, Cream, and the Jeff Beck Group.

According to Bowie, the group decided when they formed that they'd play from album to album, and that "if we were still getting on with each other – which was the priority – that we'd continue."

Band name
The group chose the name Tin Machine after one of the songs they had written. Tony Sales joked that, as all four members were divorced when the band formed, originally the band was going to be called "The Four Divorcés" or "Alimony Inc." Gabrels suggested calling the band "White Noise", but Bowie dismissed it as too "racist". Other names that were considered and discarded included "Leather Weasel" and "The Emperor's New Clothes". Gabrels later elaborated on the real name choice, saying the band's name "worked on a number of levels for us. The archaic – the idea of tin, which is still everywhere: tin cans, when you go to the supermarket; when you walk down the street you find rusting tin. It's such a supposedly archaic material, but it's everywhere. Sort of like the idea of us playing this music and not using drum machines and sequencers and things like that. There's a point at which it connects. At least for us. And the final thing, for lack of a better name."

1988–89: First album and tour
The band's self-titled first album was recorded in late 1988 and early 1989. It produced mixed but generally positive reviews upon release in May 1989, picking up favourable comparisons with Bowie's two more recent solo albums. Commercially, the album initially sold well, reaching No. 3 in the UK Albums Chart, but sales quickly tailed off. Gabrels claimed in 1991 that album sales from the first album were "ten times better" than he had anticipated. At the time of the release of the album, Bowie was enthusiastic about the band and the work they'd done, and felt that band had in them "another two albums at least."

Contrary to common reports, the band's first live performance together wasn't at the International Rock Awards Show on 31 May 1989. Prior to that show, the band played an unannounced show in Nassau. Bowie recalled "We showed up at a club in Nassau where we were recording and did four or five songs. We went down to the club and just did 'em." Added Gabrels, "We just walked up on stage and you could hear all these voices whispering, 'That's David Bowie! No, it can't be David Bowie, he's got a beard!'"

The band recognized that some fans and critics didn't like Bowie's new role in the band. Said Tony Sales, "Mainly, people are pissed off because David's not doing 'David Bowie.'" Bowie confirmed that Tin Machine live shows would be "non-theatrical" in contrast to his most recent tour.

The band undertook a low-key tour in small venues between 14 June and 3 July 1989, before further recording sessions in Sydney, Australia. During these sessions Tin Machine contributed to a surfing compilation album, Beyond the Beach, with a new instrumental song titled "Needles on the Beach". A partial recording of their show from this tour recorded at La Cigale in Paris on 25 June 1989 was released digitally in August 2019.

1990–91: Second album and tour
The group then went on hiatus while Bowie conducted his solo Sound+Vision Tour. In December 1990, Bowie split from EMI. Hunt Sales said that EMI "kind of freaked out a little bit at the strident, single-less Tin Machine debut", which partially explained why Bowie switched music labels. In March 1991, the band signed to Victory Music, a new label launched by JVC and distributed worldwide by London Records and PolyGram, and recorded more new material. This was combined with tracks from the Sydney sessions to form the Tin Machine II album. The album was described as "just as impure and twisted [as their first album], but more R&B and less abrasive." Gabrels explained the change between the first and second album was because by the second album, "we knew one another as musicians. ... It wasn't as dense. And we actually left more room, I think for David to come up with some interesting melodies. There was more room for vocals on this record."

In late 1991 Bowie reiterated that he was still happy being in the band during that time, stating "I'm content. … I'm deriving a great deal of fulfillment from working with Tin Machine", and band-mate Gabrels agreed, saying "we're doing exactly what we wanted to do." During press performances for songs on the album, Gabrels played his guitar with a vibrator and for a performance on BBC's Top of the Pops, who banned the use of the vibrator, he mimed playing his guitar with a chocolate éclair.

In early August 1991, the band began promotional performances for the album, starting with TV appearances in the UK. From 5 October 1991 to 17 February 1992, the group went on their It's My Life Tour, which was a longer tour than their first. The band was joined on this tour by guitarist Eric Schermerhorn. On 23 November 1991, the band was the musical guest during Saturday Night Lives 17th season.

1992: Live album and dissolution
Tracks from the "It's My Life" tour were released on the July 1992 album Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby. The album did not sell well and there was speculation that the failure of this album to achieve commercial success was among the reasons that the band ultimately broke up. As early as 1990, Bowie knew he'd be going back to solo work, although not because he disliked working with the band. He said "I have very definite ideas of what I want to do as a solo artist, which I'll be starting on probably late next year [1991], again completely different, hopefully, from what I've done before." Shortly after the release of Oy Vey, Baby, Bowie returned to solo recording with his single "Real Cool World", but he maintained intentions to return to the studio with Tin Machine in 1993 for a third album. These plans would fail to come to fruition, however, and the band shortly thereafter dissolved. There were allegations that Hunt Sales' growing drug addiction was responsible for the band's end, but of Tin Machine's dissolution, Bowie merely said "personal problems within the band became the reason for its demise. It’s not for me to talk about them, but it became physically impossible for us to carry on. And that was pretty sad really."

Band legacy
The band earned mixed reviews during their short career. In later years, critics have reappraised the band more warmly and Tin Machine have been found "unjustly" harshly reviewed. One critic suggested that part of the reason for its poor reception was that Tin Machine's music was somewhat ahead of its time, and that the band "explored alternative and grunge before the styles were even widely known to exist." Another critic agreed, with yet another suggesting that Tin Machine and Bowie were "merely ahead of the curve. A prophet, a voice in the desert predicting the coming of Nirvana. At the time, Nirvana was toiling in Seattle obscurity, pushing its debut Bleach on Sub Pop at every dive it played." Tim Palmer, after producing Tin Machine's two studio albums, would go on to mix Pearl Jam's grunge album Ten in 1991, and later recalled to Gabrels that he had come into the studio one day to find Pearl Jam listening to Tin Machine's "Heaven's in Here".

In 1996, Bowie reflected on his time with Tin Machine: "For better or worse it helped me to pin down what I did and didn’t enjoy about being an artist. It helped me, I feel, to recover as an artist. And I do feel that for the past few years I’ve been absolutely in charge of my artistic path again. I’m working to my own criteria. I’m not doing anything I would feel ashamed of in the future, or that I would look back on and say my heart wasn’t in that."

In 1997, when asked if he thought the band was still underrated, Bowie said, "It's going to be interesting, isn't it? As the songs creep out in different forms over the years, I assume that eventually it'll be evaluated in a different way. I'm not sure people will ever be sympathetic to it entirely. But as the years go by, I think they'll be less hostile. I think it was quite a brave band and I think there were some extremely good pieces of work done. And I think they'll kind of show themselves over time." Bowie and Gabrels re-recorded a few Tin Machine tracks during this time, including "I Can't Read" and "Baby Universal", with the former being released on the soundtrack to the movie The Ice Storm (1997) and both as a part of Bowie's posthumous Is It Any Wonder? (2020).

By the end of the 20th century, Bowie looked back at his time with the band as invaluable, saying "I had to kick-start my engine again in music. There'd been a wobbly moment where I could quite easily have gone reclusive and just worked on visual stuff, paint and sculpt and all that. I had made a lot of money: I thought, well, I could just bugger off and do my Gauguin in Tahiti bit now. But then what do you do – re-emerge at 60 somewhere? So I look back on the Tin Machine years with great fondness. They charged me up. I can’t tell you how much."

Despite some reports to the contrary, Bowie stated several times over his years with Tin Machine that he was happy working in the band. Bowie used his time with the band as a way to revitalize himself and his career, which he would later in March 1997 call a "lifeline", citing Reeves Gabrels as a source of his new-found energy and direction:

Personnel
 David Bowie – lead vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, saxophone
 Reeves Gabrels – electric and acoustic guitars, backing vocals
 Tony Fox Sales – bass guitar, backing vocals
 Hunt Sales – drums, percussion, backing vocals

Discography

Studio albums

Live albums

Singles

Other appearances

Music videos

Music video films

Live concert films

References

See also
 List of musical supergroups

Citations

External links
 Tin Machine's live performance at the 1989 International Rock Awards (Youtube)
 

British hard rock musical groups
American hard rock musical groups
Rock music supergroups
Musical groups established in 1988
Musical groups disestablished in 1992
EMI Records artists
David Bowie
Audiovisual performances are performances by performers such as singers, musicians, dancers and actors in Audiovisual Media such as a DVD, a music video or any other audiovisual platform. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has prepared a number of analyses and surveys mapping the protection of audiovisual performances in many different countries. Until 2012 audiovisual performances were denied any meaningful protection at international level. The WIPO multilateral treaty acknowledging for the first time the intellectual property rights of performers with regard to their audiovisual performances called the Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances.

References

 
Contemporary art
Art movements Runs of several thousand performances were familiar in West End theatres in the 21st century. The closure of London theatres in the Covid-19 pandemic halted the continuous runs of eight shows that had been running for more than 4,000 performances. Such long runs were a phenomenon not seen before the late 20th century: in earlier years, much shorter runs were the norm, even for shows considered great successes.

The ballad opera The Beggar's Opera ran for 62 performances in 1728, and held the record for London's longest run for nearly a century. Another musical show, Tom and Jerry, or Life in London (1821), was the first production to reach 100 consecutive performances.

In the second half of the 19th century longer runs became familiar. The 1860s saw the first production to reach 300 performances, and in the 1870s came the first runs in excess of 1,000. Among them was the farce Charley's Aunt, which ran for 1,466 performances, a record that remained unbroken for 25 years. The upward trend continued in the 20th century. The first show to reach 2,000 performances was Chu Chin Chow which opened in 1916. It held the record for London's longest run until 1958.

By far the West End's longest run is that of the murder mystery The Mousetrap, by Agatha Christie. It opened in 1952 and by 1958 was the longest-running stage work seen in London; it was still running in 2020 when the theatres closed. Its record of more than 28,000 continuous performances has not been rivalled by any other production. London's second-longest-running show, and longest-running musical, Les Misérables, totalled  14,156 performances during its run from 1985 to 2020.

18th and 19th centuries
Until 1822 no play ran in London for 100 performances. Among the reasons for this advanced by the theatre historian John Parker are that matinée performances, which typically take a show's weekly total performances from six to eight, were scarcely known, and that much of London's theatre was provided by the Patent theatres – the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden (now the Royal Opera House), and the Haymarket Theatre, which were licensed to present spoken drama. Enterprising managers found ways round the law and presented spoken plays in other London venues from time to time, but for the most part, drama was confined to the three authorised theatres. Drury Lane and Covent Garden had eight-month seasons, from October to July; the Haymarket operated during the four months when the other two were closed. All three relied mostly on Shakespeare and other classic dramatists. The familiarity of the repertoire necessitated frequent changes of programmes to attract the public.

The first stage work to obtain a run of more than fifty nights, was a musical production, The Beggar's Opera by John Gay, at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, first given in January 1728, and performed 62 times successively. King George II and Queen Caroline went to see a performance on 7 February. A press reporter wrote on 13 June:

The first production to run for 100 consecutive performances in London was Tom and Jerry, or Life in London, an adaptation by W. T. Moncrieff of Pierce Egan's prodigiously successful novel Life in London. It opened at the Adelphi Theatre in November 1821 and completed its run of 100 performance on 30 March 1822. Its record stood for five years: a nautical melodrama by W. Bayle Bernard called Casco Bay, produced at the Olympic Theatre in December 1827, was played 140 times. Despite its initial success the piece does not appear to have been revived after the initial run.

The play that surpassed the record of Casco Bay – Douglas Jerrold's comedy Black-Eyed Susan – had its first run at the Surrey Theatre, starring Thomas Cooke, from June 1829. After the 84th night the theatre announced:

The run was extended to 150 performances; there followed numerous revivals in London and the provinces. Black-Eyed Susan's record was broken four years later by Edward Fitzball's Jonathan Bradford, or The Murder at the Road-Side Inn, a melodrama at the Surrey, in June 1833. It was performed 161 times in succession, and was revived several times, over many years.

1840s and 1850s
In 1843, with the passing of the Theatres Act, new theatres were permitted to present spoken drama, with the result that more new plays were presented. Although it was another 18 years before Jonathan Bradford's record was broken, longer runs were becoming more frequent. In London (and Parisian) theatres of the mid-19th century a run of 100 performances was seen as the touchstone of success. In the 1840s and 1850s eight new plays and one revival achieved what Parker calls "the coveted 100 nights" in London: 

The first Shakespeare play to run for 100 nights was Charles Kean's production of King Henry VIII at the Princess's Theatre, with Walter Lacy as the King, Ellen Kean as Queen Katherine and Kean as Cardinal Wolsey. It ran from 16 May 1855 to the end of the season on 14 September. (It opened the next season on 22 October and ran for a further 50 nights).

1860s

In Parker's view, modern long runs may be said to have begun with the production of Dion Boucicault's melodrama, The Colleen Bawn, given at the Adelphi on 10 September 1860. It  played for 165 successive nights in its first run, and for a further 249 performances when revived in 1861 and 1862.

The first play to run for more than 300 consecutive performances was Peep o' Day by Edmund Falconer, adapted from a novel by John Banim. It was a melodrama, in which, according to The Morning Post, "everybody betrays everybody else"; it was produced at the Lyceum on 9 November 1861, starring Hermann Vezin, and ran for 346 nights. Two days after Falconer's play opened, Our American Cousin by Tom Taylor opened at the Haymarket. The Morning Post found the play "scarcely worthy" of the talents of its star, Edward Sothern, and The Era thought it "a sort of dramatic curiosity". It closed on 21 December 1861 after 36 performances; after this inauspicious start it was revived at the same theatre on 27 January 1862 and ran uninterruptedly until 23 December for 314 successive performances.

1870–1900

Throughout the century, the audience for theatre was growing because of the rapidly expanding British population; improvement in education and the standard of living, especially of the middle class; improving public transport; and installation of street lighting, which made travel home from the theatre safer.

The first play to have a run of 1,000 successive performances was H. J. Byron's comedy Our Boys, which opened at the Vaudeville Theatre on 16 January 1875. It achieved two records: one for the number of performances – 1,362 – and another for the duration of its run: four years and three months, closing in April 1879. The second record lasted the longer, not broken until 1920. The initial run of Brandon Thomas's Charley's Aunt, which opened in London on 21 December 1892, totalled 1,466 performances, but because there were matinée performances as well as evening ones – something of an innovation – it broke the record in fewer weeks than Our Boys had run. Another long-running comedy of the period was Charles Hawtrey's farce The Private Secretary which opened in 1883 and ran for 785 performances.

In the musical theatre, there were substantial runs in the late 19th century for many of Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy Operas, the longest-running of which were H.M.S. Pinafore (571 performances, 1878–1880), Patience (578 performances, 1881–1882), The Mikado (672 performances, 1885–1887), and The Gondoliers (554 performances, 1889–1891). None of the Savoy operas broke box-office records for continuous performances, and their runs were surpassed by those of two other comic operas: Robert Planquette's Les Cloches de Corneville, which opened in London in 1878 and ran for 705 performances, and Alfred Cellier and B.C.Stephenson's Dorothy, which ran for 931 performances in 1886–1889.

1900 to 1945
Between 1900 and 1945 fourteen shows ran for more than 1,000 performances:

At around the turn of the 20th century and during the subsequent two decades musical comedies and operettas were popular. Such shows as San Toy (1899) The Arcadians (1909), The Merry Widow (1907), The Boy (1917) and The Lilac Domino (1918) ran for between 747 and 809 performances. Their runs, though considerable, broke no records. By far the biggest success in musical – or any – theatre to that date came in October 1916 with Chu Chin Chow. It broke Charley's Aunt's record for the greatest number of consecutive performances, and in December 1920 surpassed the record of Our Boys for the longest continuous run. It ran until 22 July 1921, when it was played for the 2,239th time. No musical would surpass this record until Salad Days, which opened in 1954.

During the Second World War, after a brief shut-down in the early weeks of the war, London's theatres did good business, but only four shows that opened in the West End during the war years ran for more than 1,000 performances. Three were comedies: Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit, Esther McCracken's Quiet Week-end  and Terence Rattigan's While the Sun Shines; the fourth was a musical: Ivor Novello's Perchance to Dream. Coward's comedy held the London record for the run of a non-musical play until overtaken by The Mousetrap in 1957.

1945 to 2020
In the post-war era, several shows, mainly musicals, achieved runs of between 2,000 and 4,000 performances between 1945 and 1970:

The Mousetrap – 28,152 performances

None of the above productions, nor any that opened subsequently, have approached the length of the run of Agatha Christie's murder mystery The Mousetrap, which after a pre-London tour opened at the Ambassadors Theatre on 25 November 1952 and ran continuously there, and later at the larger St Martin's Theatre, until the closure of London's theatres in 2020. It broke the record for longest running non-musical play in 1957, and passed Chu-Chin-Chow's record as London's longest running show the following year. In February 2020 it had totalled 28,152 performances. A plaque (right) outside the St Martin's commemorates its status as the world's longest-running play.

10,000+ performances

The longevity of The Mousetrap has eclipsed what would otherwise be the unprecedented run of Les Misérables and three other productions playing for more than 10,000 performances. All but the last of the four were running when the theatres shut in 2020.

Other long runs, 1970–2020

Between 1970 and 2020, 13 other West End shows ran for more than 4,000 performances:

The four productions marked * were still running at the time of the 2020 shut-down of the theatres.

Notes, references and sources

Notes

References

Sources
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

Theatre
Theatre in the United Kingdom