National Theatre - Backstage Tours

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The National Theatre backstage tour allows visitors to discover the fascinating history of Britain's largest theatre complex, with the help of knowledgeable and experiences guides. The National Theatre backstage tour has earned itself numerous accolades, being described as "one of the seven wonders of London" by Time Out magazine and was also voted number 1 in westendtheatre.com's top five backstage tours. The Taketwo book has a National Theatre Backstage Tour offer, which allows you 2 tickets for the price of 1. The book has this, and many more London discounts for over 80 different attractions in London.

The tour takes you on a journey around unseen parts of three auditoriums, starting with the Lyttleton Theatre. The Lyttleton sits at the top of an L- shape and has huge storage areas behind and to the right. This helps accommodate for the vast number of production that use the auditorium concurrently; with different sets being stored there. Every set for each production is assembled on wheeled platforms that can be moved on and off stage.

The next auditorium explored in the tour is the Cottesloe, which is a large, contemporary studio space. The Cottesloe is loosely based an Elizabethan courtyard theatre, making it the ideal space for traverse or promenade performances, plus it is perfect for shows which benefit from a personal and intimate space. The third auditorium you will visit is the Olivier Theatre which is based on the traditional Greek open-stage model. It has 1,120 seats positioned in a fan shape and stretches to 118 degrees (precisely the extent of an actor's peripheral vision).

However, the real showstopper with the Olivier is its drum revolve in the middle of the stage, which goes up, down and round creating unique performances. The tour then takes visitors to the prop and set building workshops, where carpenters, sculptors and painters create everything used on stage, from silicone fruit and vegetables to giant polystyrene rubble.

The tour guide does a fantastic job of imparting their knowledge and you learn how the building facilitates all kinds of creativity. There is every possibility that by the end of this tour, you will have a serious theatre-going habit on your hands- don't say we didn't warn you! But suitably, taketwo is here to help make this habit a little easier on the purse strings, with 2 for 1 vouchers for big the big West End shows Grease and The Woman in Black.

There are up to 6 tours a day in the week, plus 2 tours on a Saturday and 1 on a Sunday, with tickets for it costing £7.50. The taketwo two for one London voucher and guidebook's national theatre backstage tour coupon enables you to buy 2 tickets for the tour for the price of 1. Have a look at the 3D preview of the taketwo book to see all the other vouchers and savings that are available.