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
Musical theatre hall, pantomime and burletta dominated the London musical stage into the 1870s. In America, mid-18th century musical theatre entertainments included crude variety revue, which eventually developed into vaudeville, minstrel shows, which soon crossed the Atlantic to Britain, and Victorian burlesque, first popularized in the US by British troupes. A hugely successful musical that premiered in New York in 1866, "The Black Crook", was an original musical theatre piece that conformed to many of the modern definitions of a musical, including dance and original music that helped to tell the story. The spectacular production, famous for its skimpy costumes, ran for