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Regent's Park Open Air Theatre

Regent's Park, London, NW1 4NU GB

Regent's Park Open Air Theatre Tickets

The Enormous Crocodile tickets Opens 17 May 2024 Opens 17 May 2024 The Enormous Crocodile

The Enormous Crocodile

Regent's Park Open Air Theatre

Tickets from £18.00

The Enormous Crocodile is weaving his way through the jungle in search of delicious little fingers and squidgy podgy knees. Only the other jungle creatures can foil his secret plans and clever tricks, but they're going to have to find a large amount of courage to stop this greedy brute.

  • Opens: Friday,17 May 2024
    Booking until: Saturday, 8 June 2024
The Enormous Crocodile tickets
Twelfth Night tickets Opens 3 May 2024 Opens 3 May 2024 Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night

Regent's Park Open Air Theatre

5/5 - based on 29 reviews - (Read reviews) 5 29 reviews Tickets from £18.00
Couples (90%) Theatregoers (100%) i
The Bard is back! This time theatreland is delighted to host a brand new production of Twelfth Night, one of Shakespeare's most magical plays and endlessly popular. Can Viola survive alone after a shipwreck, or will she fail, languish and die in the new land she finds herself in? Come and see.
  • Opens: Friday, 3 May 2024
    Booking until: Monday, 8 July 2024
Twelfth Night tickets
The Secret Garden tickets Opens 15 Jun 2024 Opens 15 June 2024 The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden

Regent's Park Open Air Theatre

3.3/5 - based on 3 reviews - (Read reviews) 3.3 3 reviews Tickets from £18.00
Families (100%) i

Spoilt and abandoned, 10-year-old Mary Lennox is sent from India to Yorkshire, and put into the care of an Uncle she has never met.

  • Opens: Saturday,15 June 2024
    Booking until: Saturday,20 July 2024
The Secret Garden tickets
Fiddler on the Roof tickets Opens 27 Jul 2024 Opens 27 July 2024 Fiddler on the Roof

Fiddler on the Roof

Regent's Park Open Air Theatre

4.7/5 - based on 128 reviews - (Read reviews) 4.7 128 reviews Tickets from £18.00
Families (84%) Couples (87%) Theatregoers (91%) i
If you adored the brilliant 1964 Broadway show, or the 1971 Oscar-winning movie of the same name starring Topol, you'll be thrilled to hear there's a fresh new version of Fiddler on the Roof coming to the capital at long last. It sold out at the Menier Chocolate Factory, on the fringes of theatreland, now it's heading to Regent's Park Open Air Theatre this summer.
  • Opens: Saturday,27 July 2024
    Booking until: Saturday,21 September 2024
Fiddler on the Roof tickets

Regent's Park Open Air Theatre Facilities

  • Bar
  • Disabled toilets
  • Infrared hearing loop
  • Restaurant
  • Toilets
  • Wheelchair/scooter access

Regent's Park Open Air Theatre Location

Travel Information

Nearest Tube station
  • Baker Street
  • Regent's Park
Nearest Rail Station
  • Marylebone
Tube lines
  • Bakerloo
  • Circle
  • Hammersmith & City
  • Jubilee
  • Metropolitan
Day buses
  • (Marylebone Road) 18, 27, 30, 74, 205, 453; (Baker Street) 2, 13, 82, 113, 139, 189, 274
Night buses
  • (Marylebone Road) 18, 27, 205, 453 N13, N18, N74; (Baker Street) 139, 189
Regent's Park Open Air Theatre history

From the outside

Regent's Park Open Air Theatre does exactly what it says on the tin! It’s 100% open to the elements in scenic Regent’s Park, with sloping ancient Greek and Roman-style seating.

Regent's Park Open Air Theatre architecture and history

Because The Open Air Theatre is entirely outdoors, you need to watch the famously unreliable British weather and dress accordingly! Wisely, the theatre provides umbrellas for sale and puts on performances when the weather is most likely to play ball, between May and September.

There are plenty of indoor theatre venues. So how did the Open Air theatre come into being? When the Italian fascist leader Mussolini’s play about Napoleon nosedived at the Noel Coward Theatre in 1932, closing after fewer than 40 performances, the Noel Coward put on an emergency production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night to fill the gap. Incredibly popular, once the play’s official run ended the theatre company decided to keep going, setting up a temporary outdoor theatre bang in the middle of Regent’s Park.

A year later the innovation had become more or less permanent, with the theatre showing an entire season of Shakespeare plays, and the venue never looked back. They even continued with matinee productions through wartime, because unlike most theatres it was safe from bomb damage. At the end of the war the Open Air theatre enjoyed a facelift with new dressing rooms. In 1974 the current amphitheatre was built to include a box office and kitchen.

In 1983, more than five decades after its first play, a musical was finally staged there. Called Bashville, it was the first of several musical hits to appear outdoors including the Olivier-nominated 1997 showing of Kiss Me Kate, High Society in 2005, which enjoyed a West End transfer and national tour, and Hello Dolly in 2009.

In recent years the Open Air theatre has been added to, with better facilities for actors and audiences and a new and highly popular series of Shakespeare plays cleverly re-imagined for young audiences.

Still Britain’s only permanent professional outdoor theatre, an impressive 94% of shows manage to go ahead despite our unpredictable weather! The Royal Parks leases the site to The New Shakespeare Company Ltd, a registered charity and a not-for-profit organisation.

Past shows at the Open Air Theatre

Regent's Park Open Air Theatre is world famous for its wide variety of shows, including classic Elizabethan drama, contemporary comedy, Shakespeare and more. Stars like Vivian Leigh, Michael Gambon, Jeremy Irons, Zoë Wanamaker and Judi Dench have played there and the venue has hosted an amazing fifty or more productions of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a play which won them a coveted Olivier nomination in 1987. The 2010 revival of Into the Woods won an Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival, ending up the Open Air Theatre’s most profitable ever production.

Regent's Park Open Air Theatre access

There’s good access for the disabled, plus sound amplification.

Regent's Park Open Air Theatre tickets

We’re a great destination for a wide variety of seat types and prices, with excellent availability on the full range of Regent's Park Open Air Theatre tickets.

Regent's Park, London, NW1 4NU GB