Where To Get Cheap Theatre Tickets In London

Harry Rosehill
By Harry Rosehill Last edited 79 months ago
Where To Get Cheap Theatre Tickets In London

London is packed to the brim with great options for theatre lovers. The only problem is, it can hit your wallet hard. Below, we round up some of the best ways to find cheap tickets. Everything costs £15 and under.

Photo: Jordi Corbilla

West End mega-hits

Les Miserables is a West End staple. It's been running for over 30 years in London and although its main clientele is tourists, that's not to say Londoners won't love it. If you don't mind standing, you can buy tickets on the day for £12.50. Allons-y.

Queen's Theatre, 51 Shaftesbury Avenue, Soho, W1D 6BA

Matilda The Musical does an offer daily for 16-25 year-olds for just £5. Head to their box office from 10am. Be sure to get there early; they only hold back 16(!) tickets per performance.

Cambridge Theatre, Earlham Street, WC2H 9HU

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time has a limited number of £15 tickets, sold on the day of performance at the Gieglud Theatre box office.

Gielgud Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, W1D 6AR

The Donmar Warehouse is one of the best places to see cutting edge theatre in the capital and has standing tickets available for £7.50, when purchased the day of performance. You can get front row seats for £10, by booking on a Monday morning, too.

Donmar Warehouse, 41 Earlham St, WC2H 9LX

Matilda the Musical

Other big venues

The National Theatre has tickets for just £15 across many of their shows.

The National Theatre, Upper Ground, South Bank, SE1 9PX

Young Barbican is a massive discount scheme aimed at 14-25 year-olds for all of the Barbican events. This includes their theatre productions, where you can sometimes find tickets for a third of their usual price.

Barbican Centre, Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS

The Old Vic guarantee that at least half of their seats at the first five previews are just £10 — an absolute steal considering some of the huge stars they have in their plays.

The Old Vic, The Cut, Lambeth, SE1 8NB

Shakespeare's Globe. Photo: Treble2309

Shakespeare's Globe has nearly 700 standing tickets for each performance priced at just £5 each. Some of Shakespeare's plays are epically long (three-plus hours sometimes) — so this an option for those with good stamina/knees.

Globe Theatre, 21 New Globe Walk, SE1 9DT

The Tricycle in Kilburn has a free membership scheme for under-26s. If you join you get theatre tickets for just £10 and cinema tickets for just £5.

Tricycle Theatre, 269 Kilburn High Road, NW6 7JR

Photo: Gary Etchell

General tips and tricks

One of the best places to check out is Tkts in Leicester Square. When it originally opened in 1980 it was known as the half-price ticket booth, and it still has excellent offers to this day. It covers the whole range of theatre and is the best spot to get cheap tickets for a lot of the West End's mega-hits.

A solid bet for cheap tickets is to join seat-filling clubs. These are organisations that discreetly make sure there's nearly always a full-house at the theatre. The best we know of is My Box Office, but there are others about too. An annual fee gives you access to loads of fantastic tickets to all genres of theatre. Be warned: you might not get the best seats in the house, because you're likely to be plopped wherever the venue need you. Then again, producers want to make it look like the best seats are sold, so sometimes you'll be in a prime spot.

If you have any of your own tips, let us know down in the comments.

Last Updated 04 August 2017