Don't cry for free Argentina': Evita showstopper sung from Soho balcony angers theatregoers

Jamie Lloyd's production of Evita has been called the hottest ticket in the West End, with audiences paying as much as £250.

- Nadia Khomami

But theatregoers keen to watch one of the biggest showstoppers in musical history - Eva Perón's performance of Don't Cry for Me Argentina - were left bitterly disappointed when they learned the scene would not actually take place on stage.

Instead, the Snow White actor Rachel Zegler, in what is her West End debut, is performing the song and a short piece of dialogue on the balcony of the London Palladium for passersby each night, while a video is projected to those inside.

The 24-year-old, who rose to fame in Steven Spielberg's West Side Story, surprised hundreds of people on the streets of Soho in central London on Saturday, when she performed the song on the balcony for the show's second-half curtain-raiser.

Crowds are now expected to assemble at the spot on Argyll Street at about 9pm every night for the duration of the show's run, which ends in September.