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In his column Here There and
Everywhere*, Jonathon Swift wrote a
valediction for the Strand. It could
have been written for all of those
superseded theatres on Bourke Street
that met the wrecker’s hammer at much
the same time.
When the curtain falls for the last
time on a living stage there is a mixture
of forced gaiety and sadness in the
proceedings, but the passing of a
picture theatre causes no excitement.
Excepting for a few handshakes
between employees after the audience
had left, there was little to indicate that
the Mayfair Theatre, formerly the
Strand, was giving its final
Bourke Street c. 1902, south side, looking west. The curved verandahs are the performance on Saturday night.
entrances to the Palace Hotel, Bijou and Gaiety theatres. The same style of building Perhaps the shades of those famous
several doors west will house the Paramount from 1915. Next door, the distinctive and notorious persons whose waxen
façade of the Tivoli rises above its surrounds. Image: Performing Arts Centre. effigies were once exhibited in the
vicinity came around about midnight,
but the shadow actors with celluloid
souls had flickered away by then.
Mechanical entertainment leaves
few lasting memories.
* The Sun, 26 Nov. 1934. ★

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank Frank Van Straten and Patricia
Convery (Performing Arts Collection)
for permission to use some illustrations
from Bourke Street On Saturday Night,
the booklet which captures the essence
of a colourful time, and Ross Thorne
for permission to reproduce some
comment and an illustration of the
Melba from his Cinemas Of Australia
The Commonwealth Bank building on the corner of Russell Lane rises on the site of the via the USA. I thank Gerry Kennedy for
former Palace Hotel and the Bijou and Gaiety theatres. Trees obscure Royal Lane his persistence, ensuring that my
which is the boundary of the Lego-like building which replaced the Paramount/ memories were transformed into a
Lyceum and the Tivoli. permanent record.
FURTHER READING:
For an account of the installation of
sound in Union Theatres in Melbourne,
see Jim Lawrence’s story in
CinemaRecord 38.

For more on the theatres which
disappeared in the thirties see:
A history of the Melba and its
successors by Fred Page, CR 33
The Theatre Royal by Fred Page, CR
34
The Britannia and Melba in Cinemas
Of Australia via USA, by Ross Thorne.
The Bijou and Gaiety in:
The Fuller Influence by Bernie
Halperin in CR 44 and
Palace of Dreams by Frank Van Straten
in CR 46.
Target (far left) occupies the site of the former De Luxe and Theatre Royal, while the
Village Centre sits over the Strand and smaller buildings on both sides of it. The
vertically banded building is the approximate site of the Waxworks and Star. The Mid
City Cinemas are on the site of Parer’s Crystal Café.

CINEMARECORD 2005 31