Seats, prices and pillars: booking the West End properly

This September the cheapest seat for The Book of Mormon was about £24 and Hamilton's about fifty quid. Those prices are real, but there are very few of them per performance and they go to whoever books first.

Prices and where to book

Those were the lowest prices on the Theatre Tickets Direct feed in late September. The from-price is usually a restricted-view or top-balcony seat, and a good stalls seat on a Saturday night costs several times as much. Among the long runners, Les Misérables and Wicked both started at around thirty pounds, and Matilda came in a little under that, one of the cheapest family shows going. Newer productions such as Cabaret, Paddington The Musical and The Devil Wears Prada were on sale too, mostly from a bit above thirty.

Start with the theatre's own website or the producer's official site, where you see the whole seating plan and pay face value plus a booking fee. Authorised agents, Theatre Tickets Direct among them, sometimes hold allocations or package deals worth comparing. Resale sites are only worth it for shows that are genuinely sold out, because prices there can run well above face value and there's no guarantee the ticket is valid.

Plenty of shows also run a digital lottery or release a few cheap day seats each morning. The terms vary by production, so check the show's own site the day before. For a gift, Theatre Tokens from the Society of London Theatre work at every West End house and don't expire.

Choosing seats, and timing the night

For a musical, the front of the dress circle is the safe bet, giving you the whole stage picture and the choreography. The stalls are best for plays, where faces and voices matter, but avoid the first three or four rows at a big musical unless you fancy spending the evening looking up. In the older Victorian and Edwardian theatres, 'restricted view' can mean a pillar slap in the middle of the stage, so check a site that shows the view from each seat. The top tiers, grand circle and balcony, are steep and in a few houses genuinely vertiginous, which is fine if you're young and agile.

Most West End shows go up at 7.30pm, with matinees on two afternoons a week, usually including Saturday. A matinee is often cheaper, easier to get at short notice and leaves the evening free for dinner, which makes it the better choice on the last day of a trip.

Doors open 45 minutes before curtain up. Latecomers are held until a suitable break, which in some shows means the interval, so leave more time than you think you need; the pavements of Shaftesbury Avenue and round Leicester Square are rammed between 7pm and 7.25pm. Longer shows finish near 10.45pm, so if you're eating afterwards, book for 11pm or so and tell the restaurant you're coming from the theatre.

Pre-theatre menus are the West End's best-value meals. They start from about 5pm and are built to get you out by 7.15pm. Rules on Maiden Lane in Covent Garden is the traditional choice, a red-plush Victorian dining room with game in season. Sabor on Heddon Street, near Regent Street, keeps its counter for walk-ins and is quick enough for a 7.30pm curtain if you turn up at opening.

Beyond Shaftesbury Avenue

The West End isn't the only theatre district. The London Palladium and Wigmore Hall, the chamber music hall in Marylebone, are each within a kilometre of thirty-odd residences on this site, and the Royal Albert Hall is a short walk from most of Kensington. In Chelsea, the Royal Court Theatre, London's home of new writing, sits on Sloane Square, with Cadogan Hall a few minutes away.

South of the river, the National Theatre and the Old Vic are the two big producing houses, both a short walk over Waterloo Bridge from Covent Garden. The Royal Opera House, for ballet and opera, is on the Covent Garden piazza itself, and for cabaret, Crazy Coqs is a small supper-club room just off Piccadilly Circus.

If the trip is built round theatre, stay within walking distance of Shaftesbury Avenue and skip the 10.45pm taxi queue altogether. Covent Garden, Soho and the streets north of Oxford Street all do that.

Food hygiene ratings for the places in this guide

Official fact Food Standards Agency Food Hygiene Rating Scheme, checked 23 September 2026. 5 is the top rating.

Name	Registered address	Rating	Inspected
Rules	34-35 Maiden Lane, WC2E 7LB	4	Nov 2025
Sabor	35-37 Heddon Street, W1B 4BR	5	Sep 2025

Ratings cover hygiene only, not food quality. Matched by name and address; a venue not shown was not found or could not be matched with confidence.

London weather by month

July is the warmest month, averaging 23°C by day. July has the fewest wet days (9) and October the most rain (80 mm). For sightseeing on foot, June scores best on our combined warmth-and-dryness measure.

Month	Avg high	Avg low	Rain	Wet days	Chance a 7-day stay sees a washout	Record high / low
January	8°C	2°C	74 mm	13	53%	16°C / -12°C
February	8°C	2°C	51 mm	10	43%	18°C / -8°C
March	11°C	4°C	45 mm	9	44%	23°C / -7°C
April	14°C	5°C	54 mm	10	44%	26°C / -3°C
May	17°C	8°C	54 mm	9	39%	30°C / -1°C
June	20°C	11°C	58 mm	9	35%	34°C / 2°C
July	23°C	13°C	52 mm	9	34%	34°C / 4°C
August	22°C	13°C	68 mm	9	37%	37°C / 4°C
September	19°C	11°C	62 mm	9	39%	29°C / 2°C
October	15°C	8°C	80 mm	11	47%	27°C / -2°C
November	11°C	5°C	76 mm	12	52%	18°C / -6°C
December	8°C	2°C	69 mm	12	50%	16°C / -8°C

Calculated NOAA GHCN-Daily observations at the Hampstead weather station, north London (records 1960–2015; averages from about 25 years per month). A wet day has 1 mm of rain or more.

West End shows: current ticket prices

Show	Type	Tickets
Witness For The Prosecution	Play	from £20
The Play That Goes Wrong	Play	from £24
The Book Of Mormon	Musical	from £24
Stranger Things: The First Shadow	Play	from £25
Matilda	Musical	from £25
Oliver!	Musical	from £26
English National Opera: La traviata	Opera	from £26
Wicked	Musical	from £29
Les Miserables	Musical	from £30
Moulin Rouge The Musical	Musical	from £30

Affiliate links: we may earn a commission if you book through these links. It does not change the price you pay or the order shown (sorted by lowest price).

Observed Lowest ticket prices in the Theatre Tickets Direct feed on 23 September 2026. Prices change daily.