Qualla: Pavilion Theatre (Glasgow)

Pavilion Theatre (Glasgow): Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit kim traynor, CC BY-SA 2.0. It opened on 29 February 1904 - a leap day, a date that should only really exist once every four years - and it has been throwing itself into the present tense ever since. The Pavilion Theatre on Renfield Street is the only privately run theatre in Scotland. No subsidy, no grant, no quiet government cheque to keep the lights on. For more than a century it has paid its way with pantomime, music hall, comedy, and the occasional touring band on the so-called nostalgia circuit. A young Charlie Chaplin played here before anyone in America had heard of him. Sarah Bernhardt played here. Marie Lloyd played here. Today the Krankies bring the kids in at Christmas. The building has barely changed.

Image: kim traynor | CC BY-SA 2.0

Pavilion Theatre (Glasgow): Pure Louis XV

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stinglehammer, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Pavilion Theatre of Varieties was the brainchild of Benjamin Simons, whose father Bailie Michael Simons - chairman of theatre owners Howard and Wyndham - guaranteed the funding. It was one of three Glasgow venues built for Thomas Barrasford's expanding chain of British music ...

Image: Stinglehammer | CC BY-SA 4.0

Pavilion Theatre (Glasgow): A Roll Call of Variety

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Webb, CC BY-SA 2.0. In its first three decades, every major name in British music hall passed through. Marie Lloyd, the brilliant and beloved star whose suggestive songs scandalised respectable opinion and delighted everyone else. Little Tich, the small-bodied comedian whose physical routines influe...

Image: Richard Webb | CC BY-SA 2.0

Pavilion Theatre (Glasgow): Panto Country

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andy Farrington, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1920 the Pavilion started producing pantomimes, and it never really stopped. Pantomime - the peculiar British Christmas tradition where men play widowed dames, women play heroic boys, fairy-tale plots get garnished with topical jokes, and audiences shout call-and-response at t...

Image: Andy Farrington | CC BY-SA 2.0

Pavilion Theatre (Glasgow): The Survivor

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Thomas Nugent, CC BY-SA 2.0. How the Pavilion stayed independent is partly geography, partly stubbornness. Sitting at the top of Renfield Street, near Cowcaddens, opposite Cineworld Glasgow and a block from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, it caught city-centre foot traffic when other venues fell to rede...

Image: Thomas Nugent | CC BY-SA 2.0