 One of the most famous of these new palaces of pleasure in the West End was the Empire , Leicester Square , built as a theatre in 1884 but acquiring a music hall licence in 1887 . Like the nearby Alhambra this theatre appealed to the men of leisure by featuring alluring ballet dancers and had a notorious promenade which was the resort of courtesans . Another spectacular example of the new variety theatre was the Tivoli in the Strand built 1888 – 90 in an eclectic neo @-@ Romanesque style with Baroque and Moorish @-@ Indian embellishments . " The Tivoli " became a brand name for music @-@ halls all over the British Empire . During 1892 , the Royal English Opera House , which had been a financial failure in Shaftesbury Avenue , applied for a music hall licence and was converted by Walter Emden into a grand music hall and renamed the Palace Theatre of Varieties , managed by Charles Morton . Denied by the newly created LCC permission to construct the promenade , which was such a popular feature of the Empire and Alhambra , the Palace compensated in the way of adult entertainment by featuring apparently nude women in tableaux vivants , though the concerned LCC hastened to reassure patrons that the girls who featured in these displays were actually wearing flesh @-@ toned body stockings and were not naked at all . 
