By the 1920s and 30s a close-knit group of actors - men and women such as Fanny Waxman, Joseph Markovitch, Jenny Kaiser, her husband Joseph Sherman, and brothers Joseph and Harry Feinberg - were working and performing together regularly in London. Many had spent their whole lives in the Yiddish theatre. Their performances would be enriched by visits from the thriving companies in Poland or the United States.

Anna Tzelniker, herself an immigrant from Romania in the 1930s, came from an acting family and became one of the mainstays of the Yiddish theatre in London. In an interview in 1992, she recalled her life with a touring troupe in the Romania of her childhood, and her subsequent career at the Pavilion Theatre in London. Download and listen to her memories.

By the inter-war years, however, Yiddish theatre audiences were beginning to decline as a result of demographic and social change in the East End. The influx of new Yiddish-speaking immigrants had stopped, and many of the earlier generation were by now moving away to the suburbs. Other leisure activities, such as visits to the cinema, became popular. Unable to survive financially any longer, the Pavilion Theatre closed in 1935.

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