1. The word theatre comes from an ancient Greek word meaning a ‘place for seeing’
2. There are over 1,300 active theatres in the UK, including amateur and professional venues, pop-up theatres and established institutions
3. Shakespeare’s Globe is the only building in London allowed to have a thatched roof since the Great Fire in 1666
4. Two seats are permanently bolted open at the Palace Theatre for the theatre ghosts to sit in
5. Bram Stoker worked as acting manager at the Lyceum theatre between 1878 and 1898. Whilst employed there, he wrote his famous Gothic horror novel, Dracula
The cast of One Man, Two Guvnors, photo by Robert Day
6. Each performance of Les Misérables uses 392 costumes including 5,000 separate pieces of clothing and 85 wigs
7. Disney’s The Lion King closely follows the plot of Shakespeare’s Hamlet
8. Ancient Greek audiences stamped their feet rather than clapping their hands to applaud
9. The oldest play still in existence is The Persians by Aeschylus, written in 472 BC
10. The word ‘thespian’ comes from the first person to have taken the stage in Ancient Greece, Thespis
The cast of The Jungle Book, photo by Robert Day