Dudley in the past

Theatres

One of the most successful theatres in Dudley was the Dudley Opera House and its successor, the Hippodrome. Dudley Opera House on Castle Hill was built on land that had been purchased from the Earl of Dudley by John Maurice Clement and was designed by A. Ramsell. It was built by a local building firm, J. H. Whittaker & Company and took 2 years to complete. The foundation stone was laid by the Mayor of Dudley on the 27th June, 1898. The building, which could seat up to 2,000 people, cost £16,000 to build. It opened on the 4th September, 1899 with a performance of the Mikado, by the D’Oyly Carte Repertory Company. John Maurice Clement was also a theatrical agent and owned musical instrument shops in Dudley, Wednesbury and West Bromwich, which sold tickets for the shows.

Dudley Opera House. From an old postcard.

Many well-known people appeared at the theatre including Charlie Chaplin, in 1906, and a young Stan Laurel in 1908. Mr. Clement died from bronchitis, on the 24th February, 1912, at the age of 71, in his home in Himley Road.

The venue was very popular and was acquired by The Dudley Opera House Company Limited, run by Edward Baring. It was then called the Dudley Opera House and Hippodrome, and put on operas, plays, dramas and music hall acts. In 1920 it was acquired by Benjamin Kennedy, an impresario, and his son Robert Kennedy. There was little demand for opera so the theatre relied on popular variety acts. The theatre was extremely successful until disaster struck on Sunday the 31st October, 1936, when it was destroyed in a huge fire. The building had to be quickly demolished because it was unsafe.

Dudley Hippodrome

Ten months later, work began on a replacement theatre, Dudley Hippodrome. The architect was Archibald Hurley Robinson who had designed the adjacent Plaza Cinema. It was built by A. J. Crump & Company Limited and used Baggeridge bricks. The theatre could seat just over 1,750 people.

Benjamin Kennedy and his son Robert, ran the theatre, which opened on the 19th December, 1938 with a performance by Jack Hylton and his band along with several variety acts. Large crowds gathered in the hope of buying tickets. On the 23rd December, Jack Hylton presented a live radio show from the theatre. Sadly Benjamin Kennedy died on the 10th April, 1939 and the theatre was then managed by his two sons, Robert and Maurice.

The Hippodrome's once impressive Art Deco interior.

Success continued and many of the popular performers of the day appeared there, including Gracie Fields, Flanagan & Allen, Max Miller, Vera Lynn, Tony Hancock, Jon Pertwee, Beryl Reid, Ken Dodd, Mr. Pastry, Old Mother Riley, Tommy Cooper, Max Wall and Tommy Trinder. In the 1950s and 1960s, appearances were made by most of the popular singers at the time, including Alma Cogan, Frankie Vaughan, Tommy Steele, Johnny Ray, Billy Fury, Joe Brown and the Bruvvers, Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Rolling Stones, Paul Anka and Roy Orbison. It was one of the main theatres in the area. The Station Hotel across the road also greatly benefitted because many of the stars stayed there in between performances.

The Hippodrome and the Plaza Cinema.

The final live performance at the theatre was given by the brilliant Roy Orbison, in August 1974. The theatre then became a bingo hall, called Gala Bingo. At the time, bingo was extremely popular, but by the turn of the century its appeal had almost gone. Gala Bingo closed on the 19th September, 2009 and the theatre was put up for auction, but failed to reach the reserve price of £500,000. Since that time it has been threatened with demolition, in spite of its significance to many local people. A number of people have attempted to save the iconic building, but it has been let down by Dudley Council, English Heritage and a number of local organisations, who will be happy to see it go. To make matters worse, the building has been vandalised and much has been stolen, so it would take a lot of money to restore it to its former glory. It is a sad end to a once-important local landmark, the like of which will not be seen again.

The Hippodrome in 2016.

Another view of the Hippodrome in 2016.

Cinemas

The cinema was probably the most popular form of entertainment in the 1930s. Silent films had been shown since the beginning of the century, but from the end of the 1920s people were attracted to the new talkies. The attraction of seeing Hollywood film stars such as Errol Flynn, Greta Garbo and Clark Gable, along with low admission charges and the growth of new luxury cinemas, made them a great attraction.

The Mechanics Institute

As early as 1895, films were shown to an audience in the Mechanics Institute, that stood on the southern side of Wolverhampton Street and on the western side of The Inhedge, where the Job Centre is today in Alexander House.

The films were shown in a presentation called “Living Pictures”. The Mechanics Institute was built in 1860 to help to self-educate working people. It had a library with a reading room and classrooms, where chemistry, French and German were taught. It also housed Dudley’s geological collection that later moved to the museum in St James’s Road.

Films were regularly shown there after the passing of the Cinematograph Act. Professor Wood who soon moved to Bilston, presented a “Musical and Pictorial Combination” during Christmas 1909.

On the 31st January, 1910 it became a cinema run by Irving Bosco, who had a cinema in West Bromwich. The Mechanics Institute was then called The Public Hall. Films were shown twice nightly to an audience of up to 800 people and were very popular.

Edwin Griffiths took over in 1922 but his application for a licence was refused. In November, 1922 the building reopened as a dance hall.

The Mechanics Institute.

The Colosseum

John Maurice Clement, who ran the Opera House on Castle Hill, opened a cinema next door called The Colosseum on the 24th December, 1910. It had an ornate brick façade that matched the Opera House, but the building behind was a cheap corrugated and cast iron structure with 500 seats on a flat floor. Films were shown twice nightly at seven and nine o’clock. It closed for a while in 1911 and the licence was renewed in 1912. Unfortunately Mr. Clement died in February 1912 and the cinema closed again.

It was taken over by George Lovatt from Wolverhampton and reopened on the 15th December, 1913 as The Gem. It claimed to be the cosiest and prettiest picture house in Dudley. The cinema changed hands again when it was acquired by John Nisbet, and yet again when it was acquired by Mr. Cranston, in October 1916. The cinema reopened on the on 2nd December, 1916 under the name of The John Bull. The first film was "Infidelity", starring the American silent film star, Theda Bara.

It changed hands again in 1918 when Ernest Davies, a local auctioneer and estate agent, took over and changed its name to the Scala. It continued to change hands in the 1920s. For a time it was run by Walter McMillan, who also opened the Castle Cinema at the old Temperance Institute in High Street.

The Colosseum.

The Plaza

In 1931 the Scala was acquired by Benjamin Kennedy who had been running the Opera House next door since 1920. He renamed it, the Plaza.

After a few years it was demolished to make way for a new impressive cinema, also called the Plaza. The new cinema was designed by Mr. Hurley Robinson and built by Parsons and Morrin Limited, of Edgbaston. It had a splendid interior and could seat 1,500 people and had excellent acoustics, with sound produced by Western Electric equipment. It opened on Thursday the 28th May, 1936, with a showing of "Top Hat" starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

The Plaza.

Benjamin Kennedy died on the 10th April, 1939 and the Plaza was then run by his two sons, Robert and Maurice, who continued to run the cinema until the 1950s. In 1954, Miles Jervis acquired the Plaza from the trustees of the late Benjamin Kennedy's estate and installed cinemascope, which was extremely popular. He opened the cinema on the 14th June, 1954 with a showing of ''The Robe", staring Richard Burton, Jean Simmons and Victor Mature. It was extremely successful and attracted a large number of people.

The cinema was acquired by Gaumont British in the autumn of 1955 and became part of the Rank Organisation. A second screen was added in 1973. The cinema opened with two screens on Sunday the 29th April, 1973. The larger auditorium could seat 551 people, whereas the smaller one seated an audience of 199. The Plaza was Dudley’s last surviving cinema when it closed in 1990. It was demolished in 1997.

The Criterion

The Criterion in High Street was founded in the Criterion Vaults, a public house on the south side of High Street, facing Stone Street. The pub specialised in music hall acts until 1911 when it got a licence to show films. It could seat 253 people in cramped conditions and opened on the 27th February, 1911. Seats cost 3d and 6d.


The Criterion Cinema. In its heyday and as it is today.

In 1913 the pub closed and it became just a cinema. It was extended at the rear to seat 570 people

In 1915 it was taken over by Sidney Bray, who also had cinemas in Brownhills, Halesowen, Stourbridge and Langley. He decided to replace the old cinema with a fine new building, having a large auditorium, with a balcony and a café. He formed a limited company, Criterion Picture House (Dudley) Limited to raise the necessary capital for the project. By the autumn of 1922, £40,000 had been raised and work began. The building was designed by Joseph Lawden, of Birmingham, and Howard Cetti of Dudley, and could seat 1,200 people in luxurious surroundings. The café, which had an American soda fountain, opened daily from 10 am. to 10 pm.


The original building.		The extended cinema.

The Criterion cinema re-opened on the 17th November, 1923 with a showing of "Hearts Aflame", starring Frank Keenan, Anna Q. Nilsson, and Craig Ward. In December 1927 the cinema was taken over by Provincial Cinematograph Theatres, which in turn was taken over by Gaumont British Theatres in February 1929. Sound equipment was installed in 1929 and the cinema presented its first ‘talkie’, “The Glad Rag Doll” starring Dolores Costello on the 11th November, 1929.

In 1941, the Rank Organisation took over Gaumont British Theatres and by the 1950s they ran most of the cinemas in Dudley, including the Gaumont, the Odeon and the Plaza. The organisation threatened to close cinemas if the government refused to abolish entertainment tax and began by closing their oldest cinemas in areas where they had a monopoly. The Criterion was one of the victims and closed on the 29th September, 1956 with a showing of "Reach for the Sky" starring Kenneth More.

The building was sold to Broadmead, a retailer of electrical goods. The auditorium at the back was demolished in about 1980 and the site is now occupied by Demons Bar and Gentleman’s Club, in King Street. The front part of the cinema now houses Shipleys Amusements store, in High Street, which faces the end of Stone Street.

The Empire

The Empire, in Hall Street, on the corner of Dudley Row, started life as a music hall. It was opened on the 6th May, 1903 by the famous music hall star and comedian, Dan Leno. The theatre was designed by local architect, Arthur Gammage and owned by Tom Prichard. It seated 1,100 in the stalls and 900 in a steeply raked balcony.

On the 1st January, 1910, Irving Bosco who had previously opened the first cinema in the Black Country at West Bromwich, obtained a cinema licence for the Empire, where films were shown by a number of people. It became a full-time cinema in January, 1912 and on the 8th April, Irving Bosco, took it over and appointed Bert Dawes as manager. The cinema initially became known as Bosco’s Picture Pavilion, but in 1919 it became the Empire Cinema.

The Empire in Hall Street, with Dudley Row on the left.

It changed hands again at the end of 1920 to become part of a Nottingham-based syndicate led by E. C. Shapeero, then again, when it was acquired by Denman Picture Houses, a subsidiary of Gaumont-British. Sound equipment was installed, but it closed on the 2nd November, 1940 with a showing of “Let George Do It”, starring George Formby. It was initially used as a Home Guard training centre and then a factory and warehouse, run by the local engineering firm, Herman Smith. It was demolished in 1975 and the site is now part of the Cousins furniture store.

The Odeon

The Odeon cinema on Castle Hill was the last cinema to be built in the centre of Dudley. It was designed by the Harry Weedon office in Art Deco style and built by Housing Limited, of Blackheath. The auditorium could seat 1,234 people in the stalls and 642 on the balcony. It opened on the 28th July, 1937 with a showing of “Beloved Enemy” starring Merle Oberon. The first manager was Charles Crathorn, who became a celebrity on radio and TV.

The Odeon in its heyday.

It was well attended and became Dudley’s leading cinema. New projectors were installed at the end of 1952, followed by cinemascope. It continued to attract large audiences and had a Saturday Morning Club, with 800 members. It closed on the 22nd February, 1975 with a showing of the musical "Oliver", starring Ron Moody.

The owners, the Rank Organisation, applied to the council for permission to demolish the building, but this was refused. It was sold to the International Bible Students Association and by 1977 was in use as a church. It was then purchased by the Jehovah's Witnesses and became Kingdom Hall. On the 5th October, 2000 it was Grade II listed as being an almost complete example of typical Odeon cinema of the 1930s.

The two cinemas and the theatre on Castle Hill.

The Olympia Cinema in Wordsley, known locally as the 'Lymp'.

It opened in 1912 and was later bought by Anthony Bailey, who is seen standing in front of the building.

He also owned the Wordsley Brewery but had to sell the cinema in 1923 because of ill health.

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