Are you looking for more information about London weekend breaks by rail? That’s actually a very good starting point because you’ve already made the best decision as far as transport goes for arriving in London. Go by train and you’ll not have to be worrying about things like car parking, how to pay the congestion charge or long motor way traffic jams holding up coach journeys. The fast inter city trains are also the quickest way to get from most UK cities into one of the central London mainline stations.

London Breaks by Rail - Express Routes

Weekend breaks can be for a West-end theatre show on any Friday, Saturday or Sunday night combined with a hotel stay of one night or more, including the show date. The most popular break tends to be a one-nighter including the big Saturday night out, but getting away early on a Friday makes a lot of sense too. Traveling on a Friday and Saturday gives a clear run through but Sundays can be fine for getting home too, depending on which rail line takes you back. All I’m saying is, check for regular Sunday engineering works if the service that relays between your city and London is one that may be prone to scheduled maintenance on a Sunday.

Longer Weekend Breaks

If your weekend break means going home on a Saturday of course, the traditional weekend has only just begun but then again I’ve noticed that for some people around here, the weekend definitely starts to ramp up on a Thursday night! London can be a very pleasant play to stay on a Sunday with less of a hurried atmosphere but still plenty of things to see and do so staying on for the whole weekend and then booking to get back on a Monday during the daytime can make for an extremely satisfying London weekend rail break, more like a mini holiday really. You could even make it a three or four night stay with the weekend theatre trip included, especially worthwhile if you have a long distance rail journey from one of the smaller rail networks that lie beyond the core inter city services.

London Shows for Weekend Theatre Breaks

One of the advantages with buying a theatre breaks package is that you can get good tickets for any of the more popular shows, even on a busy Friday or Saturday night. I tried to get an impulse ticket from the famous half price ticket booth the other day and after a lot of waiting around I came away without making a purchase. That was because the shows on offer didn’t include two that I was most interested in, and because the prices offered are not anything like half price at all.

So supposing you’ve always wanted to grab a friend and go and see Hairspray, Dirty Dancing or Sister Act on a Saturday night but couldn’t find any available tickets except from the disreputable touts and so-called discount kiosks, well the answer is to do just a little bit of forward planning and organise a weekend break in London for just a few weeks down the line, then you can get on with life knowing there’s a fantastic treat in store for you to look forward to.

London weekend breaks by rail are also perfect for really special occasions such as a big anniversary or celebration. Never mind seeing Les Miserables from the back of the upper circle, with theatre breaks packages it’s often possible to get best available seats with a competitive price guarantee, because the tour agents buy blocks of tickets way in advance and can therefore hold the best seats open for people who are booking the whole London weekend theatre package thing with the hotel stay and return rail tickets included.

This is just one suggestion, but supposing you were a big fan of the Phantom of The Opera having seen it many years ago, and fancied repeating the experience in today’s West End. This gives you two possible shows for London Weekend breaks by rail because the new show with the Phantom opens in March 2010 and it’s going to be one of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s biggest shows ever, called “Love Never Dies“. By booking the rail tickets well in advance in combination with London weekend breaks, (that’s the show and hotel stay), you get the full discount on the rail tickets which can mean as much as a 70% saving off the regular return saver.

If it appears as if the only shows on in London are the big musicals then that’s certainly not the case. There are always a number of serious plays also on in the West end, usually for shorter runs but not always, and these are also available for London weekend breaks by rail. In 2010 there will be more Shakespeare, Pinter and Becket as well as modern American playwrights, and some comedy plays too.

So you’ve decided very sensibly to opt for London weekend breaks by rail, thought about which show you’d both like to see, and maybe opted for a Friday night or Saturday theatre ticket depending which suits you best and considered the best time and day for homewards travel. All that’s left is to balance the convenience of a central London hotel with the economy of staying a little further out, but there is always a good selection of options available when booking London weekend theatre breaks. Now let me see, what else is there to worry about?

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Dirty Dancing is one of the best selling musicals for London theatre breaks. People travelling from all over the UK for hotel and theatre breaks in London just love it, but in particular there’s a big fan base in Yorkshire .

Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford and Huddersfield etc all provide small parties of enthusiastic fans coming down the East Coast rail line to Kings Cross to spend a night out at the Aldwych Theatre with the fabulous Dirty Dancing show. Who’d have guessed it? I thought Billy Elliot might be the number one choice but I’d have been wrong. Maybe it’s that we Northerners know good value when we see it and like to have a bit of fun on our nights out and Dirty Dancing definitely delivers on both scores. Prices for one night breaks start from as low as £122:50 per person including the hotel!
Just have a look at this video clip:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I so love the way that section in the car looks! How super cool is that?

(Full disclosure – I’m not from Yorkshire, I’m from even further North!)

** book Dirty Dancing theatre breaks **

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I’ve always fancied the idea of weekend breaks in my favourite TV hotels. You know, like spending a weekend in the set of a Poirrot, or even at Fawlty Towers! I never thought I’d get the chance but it is now possible!

I got to meet Basil, Sybil and Manuel (all played by professional actors) and to stay in a hotel that just for one evening was being Fawlty Towers. Having said that the hotel was actually far more comfortable than that might suggest and the food was a terrific gourmet treat (No, really!).

The main thing though was the entertainment – it was hysterical! This was definitely helped by the other guest who entered into the spirit of the thing, playing along when Basil mistook them for AA Inspectors or was unbelievably rude to them and started calling them riff raff.

There were a couple who seemed to be German and I’m still not sure if they were part of the act or not but it gave Basil chance to trot out all the classic “don’t mention the war” gags.
Oh and we got to meet Manuel’s Siberian Hamster, though thankfully not at the dinner table. Manuel also serenaded us at our table with classic seventies songs. Not a bad seenger really

The highlight was Basil and Manuel’s Flamenco master class. I’m not sure I ever laughed so much even at the original!

And of course there was Sybil who was simply dead pan and magnificent.

We had two nights at the hotel with dinner, bed and breakfast all included in our package. Luckily Basil and his companions were only looking after us on the second night
It was a really funny and relaxing weekend break and a great alternative to a traditional theatre break.

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Weekend Breaks with a twist
My office manager decided that rather than do yet another team building exercise, you know where the office hard men get to lord it over the wimps (that would be her and me!), we’d try a Murder Mystery Weekend Break at a rather nice hotel in Edinburgh. At first there was a bit of resistance, especially from a couple of the blokes. I think they look forward to splattering the boss in paint, or mud or whatever fresh hell the team builders come up with this year. Still, she is the boss, so the day dawned early (6 a.m.!) and after freezing on the station we all found ourselves curled up on a comfy train going north. This was a very civilised start to what up until now had been my annual ritual humiliation. I’m not very out-doorsy!

Right from the start there was plenty of action. As soon as we arrived at the hotel we were allocated roles and costumes. Our theme was the Roaring 20s and my Flapper costume was an absolute dream! There was a wig and everything! The biggest surprise was seeing how handsome some of the blokes looked in their costumes. Hard to believe that Jimmy from Accounts, a rather spotty youth (!) had somehow transformed into a dashing young hero! I think that’s one change of image that might stick, he certainly enjoyed all the female attention he got.
A team of professional actors guided us through the day. At first we assumed that they’d be the both the victims and the suspects and we’d have to work out who did it. So it came as a great shock when Lavinia (my best mate Sue) keeled over into her soup. Splat! Straight in – she always did love a bit of Am Dram! And there, in her back, a gleaming and rather convincing dagger! EEEK!!! I thought Mrs W was going to faint on the spot.

Well, that changed everything. Suddenly we didn’t know who to trust anymore. It became obvious that at the same time as I’d been getting my 20s cossie and a little card with my character’s details on it other people had been given quite different roles. It helped as well that there were people we didn’t know there too so we couldn’t be sure if they were actors or not. We were seated on tables of 8 or so guests, not all from our office. This definitely made life more interesting, what with the blokes all looking so handsome in their suits. Actually, a couple of them admitted how nice it was to see the women all dressed up rather than covered in mud

It was like being in a real live episode of Poirrot and ‘those leetle grey cells’ were working overtime! The plot had enough twists and red herrings to challenge my favourite TV sleuth while at the same time providing lots of fun.

Talk about team building though! Over our scrumptious three course dinner we tried to work out what exactly was going on. We were the sleuths now and together we had to work to establish the identity of the murderer. Just like Poirrot we had to look for clues, talk to witnesses, never knowing who might keel over next. It was sooo cool! I’m not going to say anymore about the plot really. I’d hate to spoil it for other people, plus which they make you sign a note in your own blood swearing never to reveal the murderer’s true identity before you can go home. OK, I made the last bit up but you get the idea

I had a chat with one of the organisers over the full English (yummy!) next morning and they do lots of these weekends. Each one has a specific theme, like a Masked Ball or a Medieval Supper, your team gets to dress up, become characters and let your imagination carry you away. Some people don’t get as into it as much as me and that’s fine they can just sit back, relax and watch the show.

It’s not just that hotel either. These things go on all over the country. We are definitely going again next year. I think the murder mystery weekend was just about the coolest corporate training we ever did! Thing is, I enjoyed it so much I’m trying to persuade my partner to go on one with me just for a laugh. I think a Murder Mystery Weekend Break could be quite romantic and I’d quite like to see him in a dinner suit, or even doublet and hose

Book a trip to a Murder Mystery Weekend Break, with tickets to murder mystery and hotel accommodation included in the price.

Murder Mystery Breaks are currently provided at Cambridge | Harrogate | Loughborough | Matlock Bath

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