London Pavilion

London Pavilion, famous music-hall which began as a ‘song-and-supper’ room attached to the Black Horse Inn in Tichborne Street at the top of the Haymarket, the stable-yard being roofed in for the purpose. After extensive renovation it opened in 1861 as a music-hall seating 2,000, and many famous music-hall stars appeared there. The hall was demolished in 1885 and a new Pavilion arose on the site. It retained the old-style separate tables and chairs, with a presiding chairman. They were abolished a year later, when normal theatre seating was installed, but music-hall ‘turns’, sometimes as many as 20 in one evening, still reigned supreme, until in 1918 Cochran took over and the Pavilion became a theatre, famous for its revues. Among the best were Dover Street to Dixie (1923), with Florence Mills, who reappeared with the all-Black Blackbirds (1926); Coward's On with the Dance (1925), This Year of Grace (1928, with Jessie Matthews), and Cochran's 1931 Revue; One Dam Thing after Another (1927) and Wake Up and Dream (1929), both also starring Jessie Matthews. After Cochran left in 1931 the theatre turned to non-stop variety, the last performance being in 1934, when the building became a cinema. It was closed for demolition in 1981.