Hidden London: the Jermyn Street Theatre, where tickets are the cheapest in the West End

Down by the hustle and bustle and Lime bike carnage of Piccadilly Circus, where confused tourists wander towards the lights of their preferred West End blockbuster, there is an innocuous little doorway that leads down to one of London’s best theatres. Hidden gem? The phrase was practically invented for the Jermyn Street Theatre.

It’s not impossible to find — the clue is in the name — but it doesn’t exactly scream for attention. No, this is a place for those in the know. Not that it’s snooty, far from it in fact. It’s just more concerned with delivering a pure hit of theatre than the hard sell. And part of its cult appeal is in its size: this is a theatre where the audience is basically in the play. “I’ve seen someone knock over their drink and the actor, still in character, picked it up and gave it back to them,” says artistic director Stella Powell-Jones, “There’s a mischief here, it’s so live here, and actors really surf that wave with the audience.”

So you find the doorway, then take some steep stairs down to the box office at the bottom, head through a door, grab a drink from a bar — just a hatch — take one of the 70 seats and find Powell-Jones and David Doyle, the executive producer, sitting there too; or at least I did. And right in front of you is the stage set, where the actors stand catching drinks.

Powell-Jones and Doyle, a powerhouse creative pair, have been in their roles for two years but in and around the theatre for longer. They are clearly in love with the place, as is just about anyone else who comes through here. And in the theatre world, they really have all been through here. Simon Russell Beale, Sam Mendes, David Threlfall, Adjoa Andoh, and on it goes.

“It’s really like the West End’s studio theatre, the last of its kind,” says Doyle. “I think that’s a testament to the vision of this small space where there’s an amazing relationship between the audience and the work on stage. That’s what’s kept audiences coming back and kept people like Stephen Sondheim to remain as champions of it, all these megastars who often just come to be part of the audience.”

This basement does vibrate with a certain magic, simply from expectancy created by the set, the lights, the classic seating and the strange hush beneath the streets. It was a nightclub during the Second World War and then became the changing room for an Italian restaurant upstairs. That was until Penny Horner, the co-founder and executive director, came down with businessman Howard Jameson and somehow saw it as an ideal place for a theatre. All the more odd, since neither was in theatre.

“Penny was working in publishing,” says Powell-Jones. “But they had lots of mates in theatre and they kept hearing about how none of them could afford to create work in the centre of town. You had to do it way out on the edges and then no one would go see it. They had the idea that there should be somewhere in the heart of town where artists could afford to take risks and audiences could afford the tickets and that has been a guiding principle ever since.”

It doesn’t rely on Arts Council funding, it operates through box office sales, donations and the support of patrons (including the late Sir Michael Gambon). And their approach is of particular importance now in a theatre scene where prices for the most sought-after A-lister shows are hundreds of pounds. Jermyn Street Theatre, where the most expensive tickets are £35 and the cheapest £10, democratises it in a way that’s more valuable than ever.

“We are the only place around here where you can get a reasonably priced ticket and where a drink is not going to cost a million pounds,” says Powell-Jones. “And you don’t know who you’re going to be sitting next to, it might be a major theatre person, or a 12-year-old with their granny. That’s the fun of it. And you’re never more than four rows away from what’s happening on stage.”

Yet it isn’t simply that proximity which makes it special, it’s the opportunity for writers and directors to experiment and flourish. Powell-Jones continues: “What we’ve loved is going to your favourite artists and saying, ‘What do you want to do?’ Then we can actually make that happen.” Like gleeful theatrical alchemists, they will pair new directors with established actors, or brand new actors with playwrights who have dug out an old script from the back of a cupboard. And they frequently come up with gold. Such as last year’s The Lonely Londoners by Roy Williams, an adaptation of Sam Selvon’s novel which was the first to portray the Windrush generation in their own words. This has now moved to the Kiln Theatre.

Next up is Little Brother, Timberlake Wertenbaker’s adaptation of Amets Arzallus Antia and Ibrahima Balde’s memoir. It’s about Balde’s epic journey across north Africa to rescue his younger brother from a camp where he’s being held by people traffickers. It promises to be the kind of spectacular and revelatory theatre that flourishes down here.

For audiences, even if you don’t know what you’re going to get, there’s nothing to lose, and you’re very likely to see something life-changing. “It makes theatre sociable again,” says Powell-Jones. “You can come with a group of friends and all afford it, and try something new. Whereas if you’re going to a big expensive West End show, at that price, you want a banker. Here though, we keep theatre as a social night out, right in the heart of the West End.”

16B Jermyn Street, SW1Y 6ST, jermynstreettheatre.co.uk