Theatre Royal, Drury Lane Theatre Royal, Drury Lane The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto Drury Lane. The building is the most recent in a line of four theatres which were built at the same location, the earliest of which dated back to 1663, making it the oldest theatre site in London still in use. According to the author Peter Thomson, for its first two centuries, Drury Lane could "reasonably have claimed
Theatre in the Victorian era section of the society, with some representation from the aristocracy. The great alteration, however, didn't come until the middle of the Victorian era. The greatest work done to improve theatre’s perception was done by none other Queen Victoria. The Queen’s encouragements of the theatre not only pumped fresh air into the London theatre, but theatre was also understood as “something destined to yield a rich harvest in the future” (9). The new audiences which were being built in both the metropolitan and provincial areas demanded new theatres. It was also the need of the time to remodel the old theatres.