Gaiety Theatre

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Bijou Theatre 217 Bourke Street, Melbourne, VIC

The Bijou Theatre provided uplifting entertainment for the masses for 60 years. It almost met its demise in a serious fire on Easter Monday 1889, credited with resulting in the establishment of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, but survived that, and the depression of the 1890s, to meet its downfall during another equally devastating depression in the 1930s.

The ‘30s was a time when live entertainment, vaudeville in particular, was giving way to the lure of the movies, especially “talkies”. The Bijou’s then owners, Ben and John Fuller, advertised the theatre as a “house of clean vaudeville” and the Roxy Theatre Talkies took its place in the building, but nothing could stem the tide of change and the Bijou was offered for sale in January 1934. Ironically, one of its final offerings was a live revue for children entitled “Mickey the Mouse”.

It took some time to sell, and several extravagant plans for future development fell through before part of the large site was sold to the Commonwealth Bank. In July 1938, the Herald newspaper documented its demolition, Theodore Fink, chairman of the theatre’s board of directors, lamenting the sight of the “roofless façade with its empty windows like eyeless sockets”. •

Contributed by Greg Lynch -