musical.today Southend, United Kingdom
Cliffs Pavilion
1,630 seats
The largest purpose-built arts venue in Essex, and the largest-capacity theatre in the east of England, sitting on the clifftop at Westcliff-on-Sea. The council bought the site in 1935 and the war and then the budget left it empty for so long that locals called it Southend's white elephant.
The building
Work on a 500-seat Shorefield Pavilion began in 1939 and stopped when war broke out. Building restarted in 1963 on a larger plan, and Bernard Miles opened the 1,100-seat theatre in July 1964; the hexagonal sunken forecourt outside followed the line of the pre-war foundations until the recent refurbishment.
Capacity is now 1,630. HQ Theatres took over the programming in 2006 and merged into Trafalgar Entertainment in 2021.
Opening dates, capacities and architects on this page come from the theatre's own history pages and from Wikipedia.