Poor old Marble Arch.  Originally designed by John Nash in 1827 as a ceremonial entrance to Buckingham Palace, it’s design was reduced in scale to save money and, only 20 years later, it was relocated to this corner of Hyde Park when the Palace was enlarged for Queen Victoria and her family.  Today it is ingloriously isolated, surrounded by a continual flow of buses, cars and taxis as the centre of a gyratory system created along with the widening of Park Lane in the 1960’s.

Cheerily, the arch is near to the site of Tyburn gallows where criminal and traitors were executed from 1388 to 1793. 

While the area has lost one of its main cultural venues, with the recent demolition of the Odeon Marble Arch which once had the largest cinema screen in London, able to take 70mm films, on the plus side, it is now is home to London’s newest theatre, designed in the round and located in the middle of the traffic roundabout alongside Marble Arch.  Designed as a Spiegeltent for the jazz musical set in 1940’s New Orleans “Five Guys Named Moe”, directed by Clarke Peters with musical staging and choreography by Andrew Wright and with the lively energetic performance taking place in and around the audience in a specially constructed moving circular stage, creating a cabaret-style intimate experience connected to the adjacent 1940’s-themed foyer and cocktail bar.

As a new and different addition to London’s theatre scene. While it is a pop-up with potentially a short-term life, hopefully the theatre will be here for a while.