Underbelly secures Soho lease for its first permanent home

Temporary festival organiser, Underbelly is getting its first permanent home, as it’s taking over a central London theatre. Based in the heart of Soho, the Boulevard Theatre is a recently refurbished theatre, and will reopen as the Underbelly Boulevard in September.

Operated by Underbelly, producers of the Cabaret and live entertainment events, Underbelly Boulevard will be a brand new home for cabaret, variety and music, comprising of a 200-capacity performance venue, a rehearsal room for hire, daytime hire for events, readings and workshops, a bar and a 100 cover restaurant.

Underbelly’s Directors, Ed Bartlam and Charlie Wood said today, “We couldn’t be more thrilled and honoured to have been chosen by Fawn and Soho Estates to take on the lease for this extraordinary and iconic venue. Not only does this mark a major milestone for Underbelly as our first permanent venue in London, but the venue is also perfectly suited to our style of programming and live entertainment ethos. We look forward to making Underbelly Boulevard a vital and captivating part of Soho’s already wonderful cultural offer and we can’t wait to share further details of what we’ve got in store in July.”

The original Boulevard Theatre site began as a sister venue to the Raymond Revuebar in the late 1950s, before becoming a small theatre in its own right, the ‘Elle et Lui’ theatre. In the late 1970’s, it was renamed the Boulevard Theatre, and was home to a wide variety of productions, most famously to ‘The Comic Strip’, but also included ‘The Collector’ by John Fowles, adapted by David Parker, ‘Infidelities’ starring Jill Bennett and Eddie Izzard’s ‘Raging Bull’ comedy club before closing its doors in the early 1990’s.

In 2010, Soho Estates began an extensive regeneration of the Walker’s Court area, including reopening the Boulevard Theatre in October 2019.