The uk has been described as a "cultural superpower"

Main article: Theatre of the United Kingdom

William Shakespeare has had a significant impact on British theatre and drama.
From its formation in 1707 the United Kingdom has had a vibrant tradition of theatre, much of it inherited from England, Scotland and Wales. The Union of the Crowns coincided with the decline of highbrow and provocative Restoration comedy in favour of sentimental comedy, domestic tragedy such as George Lillo's The London Merchant (1731), and by an overwhelming interest in Italian opera. Popular entertainment became more important in this period than ever before, with fair-booth burlesque and mixed forms that are the ancestors of the English music hall. These forms flourished at the expense of other forms of English drama, which went into a long period of decline. In Scotland the opposite occurred, with the emergence of specifically Scottish plays including John Home's Douglas and the works of Walter Scott, which included original plays as well as adaptations of his Waverley novels. The late 19th century saw revival of English theatre with arrival of Irishmen George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde, who influenced domestic English drama and revitalised it. Their contemporaries Gilbert and Sullivan had a similar impact on musical theatre with their comic operas. The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre was opened in Shakespeare's birthplace Stratford upon Avon in 1879 and Herbert Beerbohm Tree founded an Academy of Dramatic Art at Her Majesty's Theatre in 1904.^[28]
The early twentieth century was dominated by drawing-room plays produced by the likes of Noël Coward, which were then challenged by the kitchen sink realism and absurdist drama influenced by Irishman Samuel Beckett in the 1950s and 60s. Conversely 1952 saw the first performance of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, a drawing-room murder mystery that has seen over 25,000 performances and is the longest-running West End show.^[29] At the same time the performing arts theatre Sadler's Wells, under Lilian Baylis, nurtured talent that led to the development of an opera company, which became the English National Opera (ENO); a theatre company, which evolved into the National Theatre; and a ballet company, which eventually became the English Royal Ballet. Elsewhere the Royal Shakespeare Company was founded in 1959 at Stratford-upon-Avon, and continues to mainly stage Shakespeare's plays.
Contemporary British theatre is focused on the West End, London's major theatre district. The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in the City of Westminster dates back to 1663, making it the oldest London theatre, however the Theatre Royal at the Bristol Old Vic is the oldest continually-operating theatre in the English speaking world, opening in 1768.^[30] The musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber have dominated the West End since the late 20th century, leading him to be dubbed "the most commercially successful composer in history".^[31] A National Theatre of Scotland was set up in 2006.
Music[edit]
Main article: Music of the United Kingdom
See also: British pop music, British rock, British blues, New wave of British heavy metal, Britpop, British soul, British Invasion, and Second British Invasion