Suggs and the City: Journeys Through Disappearing London (30 page)

However, if it’s a domed roof you want then you only need to head left out of the Gate’s front doors and wander past half a dozen shops to the corner of Notting Hill Gate and Hillgate Street. Here you’ll find the splendid Coronet Cinema. The facade of the Coronet is quite striking, with painted stone, giant classical pilasters and a short round tower crowned by said dome. Originally built as a theatre in 1898, the Coronet became a cinema in 1923 and was designed by W. G. R. Sprague, the architect responsible for the earlier mentioned Camden Palace, who was a prolific theatre designer and spent four years articled to the great Frank Matcham. Two of Sprague’s most notable creations are the Aldwych and Wyndham’s in the West End, but this one’s a little cracker too and pretty much in original nick, despite a few scares over the years, such as demolition threats and plans to convert it to a McDonald’s. A second cinema was built on the stage of the theatre in 1993, thus keeping the main auditorium intact.

The Coronet has had a cameo role in several adverts and films over the years, including a scene in Richard Curtis’s
Notting Hill
featuring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts who were doubtless blown away, as was I, by the auditorium’s ‘plaster ornaments in Louis XVI manner; two elliptically-curved balconies; and square enriched architrave to the proscenium’. There, now you know, but you don’t have to be au fait with the technical details to have your head turned by the Coronet’s charms: it’s as pretty as a picture house can be, even if it didn’t begin life as such.

Capacity in the early cinemas rarely exceeded 600 and if you fancied sitting in the posh, padded tip-up seats it would cost you a shilling, payable at the entry box, which was open to the street. If, however, you only had threepence to spare, it would buy you a lowly place on a bench situated at the front of the auditorium. Just to add insult to ignominy, you’d also be made to enter the cinema through a separate side entrance. Oh, the shame! But if you think three old pennies was the cheapest admission, you’d be mistaken. Some cinemas allowed admittance in exchange for empty jam jars. I don’t know if these cinemas were run by the WI as a sideline or whether they were an offshoot of Tiptree Jam, but clearly glass had a price. I wonder if an empty jar of Duchy Originals Organic might get me a plush seat today? Actually, forget the big conglomerates like the WI. Ownership of the first purpose-built cinemas was largely in private hands, but small chains did emerge in those fledgling days. A gentleman glorying in the name of Montagu Pyke was one of the early pioneers of chain cinemas and had several picture houses around London. He even has a Weatherspoon pub named after him on Charing Cross Road, which stands on the site of the last cinema he built. Make mine a double bill!

Of course, the films back then were silent and accompaniment was provided by a pianist or a small orchestra. Despite the relatively primitive nature of the early films, according to modern tastes at least, cinema caught on in a big way and when the talkies arrived in the late 1920s it became even bigger. This meant that most of the early cinemas degenerated into flea-pits, as they were unable to compete with the huge, temple-like movie theatres that began to go up. Most have gone, of course, while others found new uses, like the Rivoli on Brockley Road opposite Crofton Park Station in south London, which was converted into a ballroom when the craze really took hold in the 50s.

The Rivoli began life as the Crofton Park Picture Palace in 1913 and was built in the style of the Electric cinemas I mentioned earlier. It remained independently owned throughout its time as a cinema, having become the Rivoli in 1931. The last waltz for the Rivoli as a picture house came in 1957, and it ended with a double bill featuring
The Nat King Cole Story
and
Reach for the Sky
, the Douglas Bader biopic starring Kenneth More. Today the Rivoli’s a glorious mix of art nouveau elegance and fabulous 50s kitsch and is, remarkably, one of London’s last, if not
the
last, remaining public ballroom.

I’ve always had my own rather particular style of dancing, and although I’ve heard it called many other things, it didn’t stop me from shuffling into a few ballrooms during my youth. In the late 1970s I used to be a regular at the Gresham in Archway, north London, which was one of a series of dance halls catering for émigré Irish men and women. I would always arrive late on Saturday nights. However, I didn’t necessarily go for the dancing: no, I acquired my dance-hall habit on account of the draconian licensing laws that prevented pubs from selling alcohol after 11 p.m. These ballrooms were oases in a desert of dryness for thirsty teenagers because, for some strange reason, they were permitted to sell alcohol way past last orders, which was why they attracted Daniel Farson and were also a draw for young, adventurous men like me.

These venues were traditional Irish dance halls and felt like they had been transported lock, stock and Guinness barrel from rural Ireland. Men would stand on one side of the hall, jackets off, in white shirts and ties, eyeing up the women opposite, and when enough drink had relaxed the atmosphere they would approach the girls and ask for a dance. Even for an urban yobbo like me, it was a charming reminder of days gone by. I don’t think many youngsters bother with preliminaries like that any more. In those days girls were probably warned by their mothers to be careful about having a dance with a stranger because it might lead to, well, you know . . . courtship!

Some of the large art deco cinemas that took London by storm in the 1930s were, as I mentioned earlier, still functioning when I was in my early teens, but they were pretty run down and either on the way out completely or about to get a multiplex makeover. What I didn’t realise then, of course, was that these vast, usually empty, single-screen cinemas were among the last of a breed that began dying out from the late 50s onwards, when television began to rule the entertainment roost. When I later played the Hammersmith Odeon with Madness, which became a music venue in the early 60s, it was hard to take in that this place was once a cinema because it was so massive. I simply couldn’t imagine 3,500 people sitting in this auditorium all watching the same film. It really hit home just how big an attraction the cinema was when these places were built. Apparently, 23 million people went to the cinema each week in the UK in the 1930s which, in old money, was half the population. It was such a regular weekly event that people rarely checked what was on before they set off. So let’s rewind to those times.

When the talkies arrived in 1928 so too did the big three national chains - Gaumont, Odeon and Associated British Cinemas - and the next decade saw the great age of cinema-building. These weren’t just any old cinemas, they were escapist fantasies with marble staircases, glittering chandeliers and uniformed staff. Some were built in the style of Egyptian temples while the art deco Odeon cinemas became the embodiment of 1930s architecture.

Hollywood films were big business back then, and the chain cinemas made a point of ensuring that the fantasy world their patrons saw on the screen was matched by the interiors of their picture houses. Many of London’s big, luxury cinemas have long gone with the wind, but it’s not a total disaster movie on the giant 1930s cinema front: salvation for some arrived through religion, bingo or rock’n’roll, so thankfully the Big Smoke still has some blockbusting examples to feast your eyes on.

The Brixton Astoria is regarded as the first ‘atmospheric’ super cinema and had room for 3,000 patrons when it first opened its doors in 1929. Built in the Italian Renaissance style, the cinema was taken over by the Odeon group in the 30s, but it had to reinvent itself several times in order to stay standing. Today it can accommodate 5,000 screaming patrons, having had the seats in the stalls removed, and is, of course, now known as the Brixton Academy. It became a concert venue in 1982, having spent many years as a demolition-threatened warehouse. Fortunately, unlike most ageing film stars, the Academy never lost its looks: it’s managed to retain most of its original features and underwent extensive renovation work a couple of years ago. It’s now a Grade II listed building, so it should be around in all its 1929 glory for decades to come.

The Academy was pretty massive, but it wasn’t the biggest cinema back then. That accolade goes to the Gaumont State Cinema in Kilburn, which had room for over 4,000 punters. The State is currently empty, having served time as a ballroom and bingo hall, but salvation of a sort is just around the corner. When you are looking to save an old gem like the Gaumont State, you’ve got to think big and you can’t think much bigger than God. Turning its back on lascivious dancing, the devil’s music and gambling, the Gaumont State is set to become a church. It’s a remarkable art deco building and Kilburn’s most identifiable landmark, with its 120-foot skyscraper tower - modelled on the Empire State Building - which once used to house a fully equipped radio studio. The interior isn’t too shabby either, with its huge, gilded foyer complete with a vast chandelier that’s a replica of one that illuminates the banqueting hall at Buckingham Palace.

I’ve mentioned that London scored a few notable firsts when it came to cinemas and moving pictures, and this trend has continued into the twenty-first century. The Granada Cinema in Tooting has recently been awarded a Grade I listing by English Heritage and is the first cinema in Britain to receive this accolade, which puts it in the same bracket as the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament.

Built in 1931, it will come as no surprise that, with room for over 3,000 punters, this picture palace ceased to function as a cinema long ago. In its heyday more than three million people came to watch films at the Granada, but the number of patrons attending each year had dropped to just 600 a week by 1971. By anyone’s calculation, that’s one heck of a reduction. The Granada had occasionally moonlighted as a concert venue over the years and played host to an array of stars ranging from the Andrews Sisters to Jerry Lee Lewis. Even the great Frank Sinatra played consecutive nights here when he was on the comeback trail in 1953.

But there was to be no comeback for the Granada as a cinema after 1973 when the final curtain fell following a week’s screening of
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
. Things might have turned ugly for the Granada if plans to build an office block on the site had gone ahead. But, perhaps taking the lead from their famous fictional son Citizen ‘Wolfie’ Smith, star of the Robert Lindsay sitcom that brought a satire on left-wing politics into our front rooms in the 70s, the good folks of Tooting were up in arms about the plans and threatened to revolt. Fortunately, the local council saw sense and slapped a preservation order on the cinema. As Wolfie used to cry, ‘Power to the people!’

The Granada eventually became a bingo hall in 1976. Why was it that bingo came to the rescue of so many cinemas? Luck really. The decline in cinema attendances coincided with the liberalisation of the gaming laws in 1960, which allowed commercial bingo halls to set up. Bingo became hugely popular and big venues were required by companies such as Mecca. Empty cinemas fitted the bill perfectly and, fortunately, the transition generally didn’t do too much damage to the fabric of the buildings. At the Granada, for example, only the seats in the stalls needed to be removed in order to make the house a home for the bingo brigade, which is more than a relief because the place is a treasure.

The Italianate facade of the Granada, including four tall pillars topped by Corinthian capitals, gives the cinema a stately appearance which belies the flamboyant splendour that awaits beyond its front doors. Once inside, the dazzling brilliance of the place left me gobsmacked and I dare say it had the same effect on the full house that turned up on its opening night in 1931, when over 2,000 punters were turned away at the door.

The interior was designed by Russian theatre-set designer Theodore Komisarjevsky, who apparently ransacked a textbook of gothic details in order to make the punters feel they were entering a palace when they walked into the Granada. He certainly succeeded. I’m not sure how authentic the styling detail is, but if you want one word to describe the Granada, I’d plump for ‘opulent’. If you want two, then I’d go for ‘beyond opulent’. Komisarjevsky clearly wasn’t a man who thought less was more.

When you step off the Mitcham Road and into the Granada you are confronted at once with a splendiferous sight. The interior features a marble foyer and staircase, where vast moulded columns support arcading topped by painted heraldic lions. Dazzling chandeliers and candle-effect wall-lighting illuminate this double-height foyer and its fancily carved ceiling. Once up the stairs on the way to the circle, you’re greeted by a spectacular hall of mirrors. This looking-glass arcaded cloister is topped off by a gently arched, flower-encrusted ceiling from which hang Moorish-style decorative candelabras. For a moment it’s easy to forget you’re in south London and it’s possible to feel as though you’ve stumbled down some mysterious sci-fi corridor into a medieval palace in Moorish Spain. If you get past the hall of mirrors without getting a bit of a blast from the heady mixture of gothic, Romanesque and Moorish design you’ve already encountered, then the auditorium is sure to blow you away. Here there are mural paintings of troubadours and wimple-wearing damsels, huge gothic and Romanesque arches, vast stained-glass windows and a ceiling that is so elaborately carved that it would have given Michelangelo a run for his money in the effort and exertion stakes.

The 1930s are remembered for the Great Depression, but a visit to the Granada must have lifted people’s spirits in that period of strife. I can only imagine what it must have been like to watch a movie in such opulent surroundings, but a game of bingo here put a spring in my step and if I’d won, it would have been hard to resist the temptation to shout, ‘Our house!’ As long as you don’t mind too much about being beaten by ladies of a certain age at a game of chance, I recommend you go and give it the once-over. I’m sure it’ll put a smile on your face too.