Aldridge returned to London via Hamburg and took the next three and a half months off. He may have felt he deserved a holiday, having earned more than enough money during his six weeks in Sweden to support his family without going back to work immediately. He also may have decided to try his luck on the Continent again instead of resuming relentless touring in Britain, so perhaps he needed some quiet time to make the necessary arrangements. Before putting such a plan into action, however, he agreed to appear for two weeks in the middle of October at the City of London Theatre, which was located in the northeast corner of the main financial district.

According to the historian Michael Williams, this was a theater that, “owing to a remote situation, and other causes, … scarcely ever achieved Fame, and never Fashion, [but] maintained, nevertheless, for a period of many years, a certain position and popularity of its own.” It had its most successful years under the management of Nelson Lee, who had been honored alongside Aldridge at the anniversary dinner of the Dramatic, Equestrian, and Musical Sick Fund Association the previous April. Lee owed his success at this theater not only to the popularity of his own pantomimes but also to his recruitment of major stars to perform in Shakespearean plays and well-mounted melodramas.

This is exactly what Aldridge was called on to do. He spent his first week there playing Othello, Shylock, Mungo, Gambia, and Zanga, and his entire second week performing as Fabian in The Black Doctor! and as Mungo and Ginger Blue in the afterpieces. The press, as usual, did not take much notice of what was going on at theaters in the East End, but there were a few mentions of Aldridge at Lee's theater, one of which, printed in three papers, gave a lengthy account of his career and concluded by recommending that he