Les Miserables and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time theatre audiences evacuated after electrical fire broke out

The cast and the audience had to wait outside on the street

'Les Miserables' on Shaftesbury Avenue in London's West End (Getty Images)

Two West End productions were brought to a halt yesterday after an electrical fire broke out in the boiler room of the one theatres.

Audiences watching matinee performances of Les Misérables and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time were evacuated.

People watching Les Misérables were plunged into darkness 30 minutes into the performance when the electrical fault caused a power cut.

Around 1,200 people were forced to leave the Queen's and Gielgud theatres and wait on the streets, including the cast of Les Misérables who were still dressed in their costumes.

Both the cast and audience members took to Twitter to share pictures of the evacuation. One Twitter user called John Hodge posted a picture of two actors looking disgruntled and wrote, "Now evacuated! Could be worse. We could be the cast of Les Mis!"

The fire crews dealt with the small fire, which was caused by an overheated cable that serves both the theatres on Shaftesbury Avenue.

A spokesman for the Queen's Theatre said, “We are sorry for the inconvenience and disappointment caused and look forward to welcoming patrons to another performance of Les Misérables.”

No one was injured in the incident and the problem has now been fixed.

The evening performances of shows went ahead on Saturday night.

A tweet from the official Les Misérables said: “The show is back on tonight, and we haven't burnt much energy ... So we're gonna be on fire!!”

This is not the first time people have had to be evacuated from a performance of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, which recently moved to the Gielgud. In December 2013 the audience had to leave the Apollo Theatre after the roof started to collapse.

Additional reporting from the Press Association