Pavilion Theatre, Mile End Road 

Opened in 1894, this was the third Pavilion Theatre on the site: all the others had been destroyed by fire.  The Theatre was equipped with machinery equal to any in the West End and had a capacity of 3,5000. 

In 1824 the Brunswick Theatre in Well Street, now Ensign Street, collapsed just before its opening.  There was a need for a theatre to take its place in the area.  A floor manufacturing factory in Whitechapel Road was found to be suitable and converted into a theatre.  The Brunswick Theatre’s licence was transferred to the new Pavilion Theatre as well as many of its performers.  

The 1st Pavilion Theatre opened to the public on the 10th November 1828.  From the start it was a huge success putting on the same shows as seen in the West End.  Some argued that they were even better than the West End ones!  So much so that by the 1860s, the Pavilion proudly boasted on its publicity that it was the “Drury Lane of the East”. 

The Pavilion Theatre reached the height of its popularity at the end of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century.  It was in this period that the Pavilion Theatre became famous as a Music Hall, for lavish Christmas pantomimes and heart-rendering melodramas.  However the Music Hall was its' number one attraction, able to attract the leading Music Hall stars of the day, such as Marie Lloyd. 

Over this period the Theatre also became the home of Yiddish Theatre.  The population in the East End was changing.  Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe had found a home in the East End.  The Theatre needed to cater for these new customers, who spoke Yiddish and little English.  The Pavilion decided to put on Yiddish plays, romantic opera, melodrama and broad farce, with songs and dances, performed by famous Jewish actors and actresses.  These were very successful.  The Pavilion also became the centre for the local Jewish community, being used for Cantorial Concerts and High Holiday Services. 

The Theatre was also used for boxing and wrestling shows and the new craze of the day, the cinema. In the 1930s audiences declined and the Pavilion closed its doors in 1933.  The local Jewish population were horrified that there would be no home for Yiddish Theatre in the East End.  But two small Yiddish Theatres would take the place of the Pavilion: the Grand Palais in Commercial Road and the Jewish National Theatre in Adler Street. 

The Pavilion Theatre was sold to a Cinema Circuit in the 1930s for a cinema but nothing came of it.  It remained empty and neglected and gradually went into a state of disrepair.  During the Second World War, the Theatre received some bomb damage.  But it was a fire in 1961 that gutted the Theatre and lead to its demolition.  The site of the Pavilion is still empty and used as a car park.  Two walls remain with some original plaster work in place.  Also, some the of shinny tiles of the entrance are still attached to the shop next door.