Queen's Theatre in a modern style. The reconstructed theatre opened 8 July 1959 with John Gielgud's solo performance in "Shakespeare speeches and sonnets, Ages of Man". Since April 2004, the theatre has played host to Cameron Mackintosh's production of "Les Misérables" which transferred after 18 years at the nearby Palace Theatre. The musical celebrated its 20th anniversary at the venue on 8 October 2005 and overtook "Cats" as the longest running musical of all time a year later on 8 October 2006. The theatre was Grade II listed by English Heritage in June 1972. An extensive refurbishment was undertaken in the latter
Gielgud Theatre and other seats have been removed. The theatre is a pair with the Queen's Theatre, which opened in 1907 on the adjacent street corner. The first play at the theatre was a musical called "The Beauty of Bath" by Hicks and Cosmo Hamilton. "My Darling", another Hicks musical, followed in 1907, followed by the original London production of "Brewster's Millions", and the next year, the long-running London premiere production of the Straus operetta, "A Waltz Dream" . An astonishing event occurred midway through the run of the theatre's next major work, a musical titled "The Dashing Little Duke" (1909), which