Finborough Theatre

The Finborough Theatre is a small fifty-seat venue above a pub in West Brompton, part of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It sits above the pub’s ground floor and basement, which once housed a brasserie and later a wine café before the pub reopened in 2014 and again in 2025 after refurbishment. The theatre was opened in June 1980 by June Abbott, who invited artists such as Clive Barker, Kathy Burke, Ken Campbell, Mark Rylance and Clare Dowie to perform in its early years. Artistic director Neil McPherson has led the theatre since taking charge, programming new British writing alongside UK and world premieres of plays from English-speaking countries and translations. The programme also includes rarely seen 19th and 20th century plays and new or rediscovered music theatre. The theatre is known for nurturing new talent and staging groundbreaking productions that later transfer to larger venues. In the 1990s it presented Naomi Wallace’s The War Boys and Anthony Neilson’s Penetrator, which moved to the Royal Court Upstairs. Later transfers included Frank McGuinness’s Gates of Gold to the West End and Joy Wilkinson’s Fair to the West End as well. Recent years have seen world premieres such as Athena Stevens’s Scrounger and Joe Crilly’s On McQuillan’s Hill, alongside revivals like St John Ervine’s Mixed Marriage and Caryl Churchill’s Fen. During lockdown the theatre ran a free online programme, #FinboroughForFree, streaming archive productions worldwide. Inside, the theatre is compact and intimate, with a single auditorium seating fifty. The space hosts plays in translation, English-language premieres and rediscovered works from the 19th and 20th centuries. The programme often includes music theatre and new writing from North America, Canada, Ireland and Scotland. Surrounding the building is the pub and its refurbished bar and restaurant, offering a place to gather before or after performances. The area retains the character of late 19th-century West London, with the pub’s 1868 architecture standing alongside modern refurbishments.