The Sun Tavern, Bethnal Green

I rather like the cut of the Discount Suit Co geezers' cloth -  http://tinyurl.com/l6dj4fc. So, I'm in like Flynn to try on their new outfit for size. That'll be an old cloth cap Bethnal Green boozer re-tailored to suit that faubourg's inky, beardy, Brylcreem-y boys - indistinguishable from the original Sun's patrons, back in the day when local songbird, Marie Lloyd (pictured), was wowing them in the cheap seats at nearby Sebright Music Hall with a rousing chorus of Roll Out The Barrel. The barrels rolled out here are local-ish...and deeply drinkable. Crate. Partizan. Pressure Drop. Beavertown. Talking of Beavertown, the bar's Peaky Blinder interior - dark, deconstructed, dissolute - recalls the sort of louche East End taproom where muffs and molly boys for hire would give it up for a port and lemon and a shilling, "kind sir", up the back alleyway...so to speak. Port (white) and lemon appear here in shippers pie plant (along with gin, pink grapefruit and rhubarb cordial), one of various fixes, fine at £7.50. Served in pewter tankards, ideas such as apricot brandy grog, the bogcutter, contain Paddy moonshine; the bar being big on poitin. (Question for the PC police? Can I still say "Paddy"? As I'm 100% Jock, I'll risk it). Adroitly dispatched off-menu requests - negroni/ old fashioned - confirm the boys behind the bar aren't merely decorative. "Check out the talent!" beams a blonde bird waiting for Jacques de Sores to appear (rums from Cuba and Martinique, Velvet Falernum, lime, honey water and Angostura charged with prosecco, £8). Welcome to The Sun, a Page 3 stunner! 
441 Bethnal Green Road E2 0AN www.thesuntavern.co.uk

The Green Room, Stepney

The agreeably shambolic Mahogany Bar at Wilton's Theatre is a popular spot for jobbing thesps, the occasional star (Miss Minnelli is a fan), E1 trendsters and rubbernecking tourists who have picked out this landmark architectural gem from their guide books as a must-see. Quite right too: fabulously atmospheric and now a World Heritage site, Wilton's is the planet’s oldest surviving working music hall. Muso anoraks will know it from videos such as Annie Lennox's No More I Love Yous, Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Relax http://tinyurl.com/2a6rnw and more recently, Mumford and Sons' Little Lion Man. Originally Georgian, rebuilt in mid-Victorian times, a survivor of the Blitz, it's little changed from the days when vaudevillian Champagne Charlie was a regular turn on its stage. When you finally elbow your way to the bar, you'll find Meantime and Black Isle on tap, wine from £17 - £30 and, if the locusts haven't stripped the place bare, aperitivi -  served gratis, unlike at various London imposters - from 6  to 8pm. So popular did its upstairs Green Room - normally reserved for artistes -  prove with punters when it was opened to them during the theatre's recent staging of The Great Gatsby, it's now a cocktail bar, open to the public from Wednesday to Saturday each evening until 11 pm. Relive The Good Old Days with tipples from £7. In a strong cast that includes ginger and scotch martini, The Great McGonogall, and bittersweet chocolate sip, Montezuma, prune-infused Armagnac swashbuckler, D’Artagnan, manages to steal the limelight. 

Wilton’s Music Hall, 1 Graces Alley E1 7702 2789 http://tinyurl.com/cvpjpxv