End of The Rainbow at Trafalgar Studios London West End

Olivier Award winning star of Hairspray Tracie Bennett returns to the West End Stage in Peter Quilter's new play based on the later life of Judy Garland. Directed by the multiple commemorated award winning Terry Johnson, End Of The Rainbow received five star critical reviews and nightly standing ovations upon its pre London performances.

It's December 1968 and Judy Garland is going to make her comeback... once more. Inside a London hotel suite together with her youthful new future husband at her side, Garland struggles with a tornado of drugs and also alcohol consumption as she undertakes an exhausting series of shows at the Talk of the Town to attempt to recover her crown as the greatest talent associated with her era.

In spite of a number of failed marriages along with a damaged Hollywood career, Judy remains to be a tough, persuasive, outstanding lady continually equipped to the teeth with her renowned razor-sharp humor.

Featuring the spectacular performance by Tracie Bennet the production incorporates a number of Garland's traditional melodies, including the Man That Got Away, Come Rain or Come Shine, The Trolley Song and Somewhere Over the Rainbow, with a live onstage band.

Trafalgar Studios brief history: Formerly the Whitehall Theatre, Trafalgar Studios is two new theatre studios in one location in the middle of the London's West End. Starting up with the RSC's production of Othello, the bigger space provides close to 380 seats. Othello was followed by the Watermill Theatre's acclaimed production of Sweeney Todd.

Architects Tim Foster and John Muir have created two new intimate and dynamic theatre areas designed to insert a fresh energy and exhilaration into the venue as well as in to the West End. The Whitehall theatre started out in 1930 with a transfer of The Way to Treat a Woman by Walter Hackett (also the theatre's licensee). He presented numerous more very successful plays of his own right up until departing in 1934. The theatre continued to improve its reputation for common modern day comedies during the entire 1930s.

During the war this particular tried and tested formula was declined in preference of revue shows, that had been all the rage in other regions within London's West End. In 1942, The Whitehall Follies was launched, featuring a non-stop performance by Phyllis Dixey, people flocked in, mostly due to the fact that the well known Miss Dixey was renowned for being the very first stripper in the West End!

In the mid-eighties, under Ian B Albery, there was extensive refurbishment to complement the new program of high quality theatre. Most of the building's exclusive art deco features were kept, as well as the Whitehall reopened with a greatly prosperous revival of J B Priestley's When We are Married.

Highlights of the late eighties and early 90's include Run for Your Wife, Alan Ayckbourn's Absurd Person Singular and A Tribute to the Blues Brothers. Some other well-liked productions include Cooking With Elvis starring Frank Skinner, Only the Lonely, Trainspotting and John Godber's Bouncers. The theatre has also played host to radio and television shows and live theatre operating concurrently. Currently displaying is End of The Rainbow.