The Winter Gardens Theatre was a
theatre
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...
and later a
cinema
Cinema may refer to:
Film
* Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography
* Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image
** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking
...
in
New Brighton on
Merseyside
Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan county, metropolitan and ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of List of ceremonial counties of England, 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Merse ...
. Located in a
tourist area close to the
New Brighton Tower
New Brighton Tower was a steel lattice observation tower at New Brighton in the town of Wallasey, Cheshire (now in the Borough of Wirral, in Merseyside), England. It stood high, and was the tallest building in Great Britain when it opened ...
it catered to both locals and holidaymakers. Originally constructed in 1908, it was rebuilt in 1931 and increasingly used for showing films. These continued until 1959 when it shut as part of nationwide fall in film attendances. Used as
bingo hall
Bingo is a game of probability in which players mark off numbers on cards as the numbers are drawn randomly by a caller, the winner being the first person to mark off all their numbers. Bingo, also previously known in the UK as Housey-Housey, ...
in the 1960s, it then stood empty for many years before being demolished in 1991. It had a capacity of 1,400 seats.
In the 1920s a number of plays premiered there before heading to the
West End including
Dorothy Brandon
Dorothy Brandon was a British playwright active in the interwar years. Her greatest West End success was the 1923 medical drama '' The Outsider'' which was revived several times, and adapted into films on three occasions.
An earlier hit was 191 ...
's ''
Araminta Arrives'' in 1921 and
Joseph Jefferson Farjeon's ''
Number 17'' in 1925. In February 1927
Edgar Wallace
Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1 April 1875 – 10 February 1932) was a British writer.
Born into poverty as an illegitimate London child, Wallace left school at the age of 12. He joined the army at age 21 and was a war correspondent during th ...
's hit play ''
The Terror
The Reign of Terror (french: link=no, la Terreur) was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervour, ...
'' appeared at the Winter Gardens before heading to a lengthy London run.
[Wearing p.514]
References
Bibliography
* Wearing, J. P. ''The London Stage 1920-1929: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel''. Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.
Theatres in Merseyside
Theatres completed in 1908
1908 establishments in England
Demolished buildings and structures in England
Buildings and structures demolished in 1991
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