Novello Theatre
theatre in London
The Novello Theatre is a West End theatre on Aldwych, in the City of Westminster. It was known as the Strand Theatre between 1913 and 2005.
History
The theatre was built as one of a pair with the Aldwych Theatre on either side of The Waldorf Hilton, London, both being designed by W. G. R. Sprague. The theatre was opened by The Shubert Organization as the Waldorf Theatre on 22 May 1905, and was renamed the Strand Theatre, in 1909. It was again renamed as the Whitney Theatre in 1911, before again becoming the Strand Theatre in 1913. In 2005, the theatre was renamed by its owners (Delfont Mackintosh Theatres) the Novello Theatre in honour of Ivor Novello, who lived in a flat above the theatre from 1913 to 1951.
The black comedy Arsenic and Old Lace had a run of 1337 performances here in the 1940s, and Sailor Beware! ran for 1231 performances from 1955. Stephen Sondheim's musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum opened here in 1963, running for nearly two years. In 1971, the comedy No Sex Please, We're British opened here, remaining for over 10 years of its 16-year run until it transferred to the Garrick Theatre in 1982.
The public source identifies “Novello Theatre” as theatre in London. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Novello, Theatre and theatre.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q12064499. Authority coordinates are 51.512, -0.119. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1913, 2005, 1905 and 1909.
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This entry incorporates text from “Novello Theatre” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.