Prince of Wales Theatre seating capacity slightly to 1,160 seats and to modernise the theatre's facilities. New bars were added, the auditorium completely rebuilt, the backstage areas refurbished and the theatre's famous tower and exterior completely gutted and refurbished with new LED lighting and a crisp modern finish. The theatre re-opened with ABBA's musical "Mamma Mia!" on 16 April 2004. On 18 August 2007, "Mamma Mia!" became the longest-running show ever at the Prince of Wales, overtaking the previous record held by "Aspects of Love" with 1,326 performances at the venue and counting. The production marked another landmark on Thursday 23 August 2007, celebrating
Development of musical theatre draw in the audiences, leading to better profits and improved production values. The first play to achieve 500 consecutive performances was the London (non-musical) comedy "Our Boys", opening in 1875, which set an astonishing new record of 1,362 performances. This run was not equaled on the musical stage until World War I, but musical theatre soon broke the 500 performance mark in London, most notably by the series of more than a dozen long-running Gilbert and Sullivan family-friendly comic opera hits, including "H.M.S. Pinafore" in 1878 and "The Mikado" in 1885. These were sensations on both sides of the Atlantic