The company of Into the Woods sang three Sondheim numbers in the street on Tuesday evening before St Martin's Lane's theatre-themed Christmas lights were switched on, the first time the display has had a ceremony of its own.
St Martin's Lane has been dressed for Christmas every year since 2022, when the Heart of London Business Alliance and its cultural arm, Art of London, first strung lights across it. What it had never had was a switch-on, and on Tuesday 3 November the cast of Into the Woods, whose own theatre stands on the same street, supplied one. The plans were announced here last week.
WestEndTheatre.com reports that Kate Fleetwood, John Dagleish, Laura Pitt-Pulford, Keith Ramsay, Matthew Seadon-Young and Lucas Koch performed on the street, singing It Takes Two, Giants in the Sky and Children Will Listen before the lights went on, and that the display will stay up until 6 January 2027.
The three songs come from across the score. It Takes Two belongs to the Baker and the Baker's Wife, the parts Dagleish and Pitt-Pulford play nightly at the Noël Coward Theatre; Giants in the Sky is Jack's song, and Jack is Ramsay's role; Children Will Listen is drawn from the show's finale. Fleetwood is back as the Witch, the role that earned her an Olivier nomination, and Seadon-Young doubles as Cinderella's Prince and the Wolf.
The free street event was set to open at 4pm, with businesses along the lane handing out seasonal tasters and a choir joining the cast, and the switch itself pressed at 4.45pm. The lights follow a theatre theme, run on energy-efficient LED bulbs with fully recyclable coloured inserts, and are lit every day from 3.30pm to 10.30pm, the hours when the street is busiest.
Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Into the Woods, in Jordan Fein's revival, is booking at the Noël Coward Theatre until Saturday 9 January 2027, three days after the lights come down.
