1. You Can Make Music Out Of ANYTHING.

I’ve never been one to commit to an instrument. I’ve dabbled in keyboard and of course was part of a school choir once upon a time I never thought that musicality lied outside of classical music and formally trained musicians…WRONG.

Enter Stomp.

Many of the cast may not be ‘technically’ trained musicians (although many are drummers), but they prove that if you can tap your foot you can make rhythm out of anything. You name it, they play it and going to see it will give you a whole new relationship to your pots and pans…

2. It Can Make Stories Jump Off The Page And The Screen

There’s no greater inspiration than literature and it seems like everything on at the cinema is an adaptation of one novel or another.

The theatre is no different…except that it seems to do our beloved childhood stories way more justice than Hollywood does!

Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and even Horrible Histories are way better played out in the West End, and you may think it’s cheating to go and watch without a little one with you but once you get there you’ll be so giddy you basically become eight years old again anyway.

3. Mistakes Are Good

Slapstick comedy is an essential part British life, fact. I genuinely think all teapots would malfunction if Monty Python and Fawlty Towers didn’t exist.

So it’s no surprise that it’s a staple feature of the West End thanks to The Play That Goes Wrong.

It’s excruciating to literally watch the play go wrong before your very eyes, but being in a room full people audibly laughing makes it bearable!

4.It’s Timeless

We are in the era of the revival people!

Everything seems to be making its second coming – first it was the Spice Girls, then Dad’s Army and now even Disney are making live action remakes of all their movies.

But the theatre? It is always being revived and reinvented but on the flip-side of the spectrum it has some of the longest running shows in history.

Les Miserables has been running in London for 31 years, Phantom of the Opera for 30 years and Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap has been running for a whopping 64 years – crazy!

5. London Is Never Shakespeare-less.

Not a week goes by where one of The Bard’s plays isn’t being performed in one theatre or another across town.

Whether it is a reworking of Cymbeline at the Barbican or a performance at Shakespeare’s Globe you’d never be hard pushed to find something written by Will in our fair city.

New York may have the bright lights of Broadway but I wouldn’t swap the West End for it any day. Quirky venues, a long theatrical history and British humour make it just one part of why London is the greatest city on earth, I’m not biased I promise…

To buy tickets for all the shows mentioned in this post and many more, visit www.boxoffice.co.uk.