The Apollo Victoria Theatre is a theatre on Wilton Road near Victoria station in London. The building was designed as a ?super-cinema? by E. Warmsley Lewis in 1930 in striking art deco style. The cinema closed in 1975, reopening six years later as a theatre, with a concert by Shirley Bassey providing the opening night. For eighteen years, the theatre was home to Andrew Lloyd Webber?s musical, "Starlight Express", for which the theatre was extensively redesigned to accommodate a multi-tier roller skating arena. On 12 January 2002, shortly before the show?s 18th birthday, Lloyd Webber made the decision to stop the show, in order to open his new production of A. H. Rahman?s Bombay Dreams, which received its world premiere on 19 June 2002. The original production, which starred Raza Jaffrey, ran for two years before closing on 13 June 2004 after over 1,500 successful performances.
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