NEWS

January 17th 2008

The Mercia Cinema Society Website was successfully moved to a new hosting provider recently. As well as generous storage and bandwidth capacity, the opportunity has been taken to introduce new facilities to further progress our stated aims; encouraging and publishing cinema history.

Our first launch is the Mercia Cinema Society Blog, known as

Mercia Matters.

This gives Society Members the opportunity to publish material and information much more simply and speedily, including photographs and links to other online resources. Blogs can take many forms but ours is intended as a “content management system”.

It is not necessary to register in order to visit Mercia Matters, however it will make adding comments much more straight-forward. Members wishing to upload content should register as normal then request authoring rights from the webmaster, identifying their registration name and membership number.

Click here to visit to our new blog.

November 27th 2007

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

PRINCE of WALES’ THEATRE Coventry Street London W1
(by kind permission of the General Manager, Graham Sykes)
Committee meet at 11.30
preceded by tour of theatre at 12.00 noon
1.15 Saturday 1st December: Prince’s Room (upstairs – sorry no lift)

We have a committee vacancy – please consider volunteering.
GUESTS and OBSERVERS are very welcome, but, of course, may not vote on any motion put to the floor.
Because there is a matinée following, we must vacate the theatre – but we will adjourn to a nearby pub for a social hour (or two) to give members the chance to chat informally to others on cinema history and archæology, and, if they wish, meet individual committee members.

If you have item(s) to sell, why not bring it/them along?

Nearest tube stations: Leicester Square & Piccadilly

December 5th 2006

Via Mervyn Gould:

THEATRE MUSEUM CLOSURE THREAT

The V & A will CLOSE the Theatre Museum on January 7th. A campaign has now been launched to prevent this happening, to allow time for proper consultation about its future and to ensure the continuation of this vital resource.

Please add your name in support. We are not asking you to give money or effort

Just follow these three simple steps:

1. Log on to our website http://www.theatremuseumguardians.org.uk Which will also give you more background
2. Fill in your name
3. Tick a couple of boxes

November 11th 2006

After the AGM TIM ADDYMAN will give a talk on York cinema history, and the results of his latest research.He will illustrate with items from his collection.

October 10th 2006

MERCIA AGM news:

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2006

will be held at the

CLIFTON

Bingo & Social Club

YORK

on Saturday 2nd December 2006

We meet upstairs in the former lounge at 11.15–11.30 for the taking off of coats, introductions to first-time attenders, etc. Then a tour of the building led by co-owner Jeremy Prendergast, grandson of the founder. Then a loo break, and then the AGM c.noon. Guests are very welcome. Items for the
agenda to be sent to the administrator a.s.a.p.

The Clifton is at Clifton Green, along Bootham from the city wall from Bootham Bar. Ample car parking is available in the two cinema car parks in Burtonstone Lane running off to the right of the façade. Please use the car park on the right hand side of Burton Stone Lane coming from the Clifton end (the opposite side to the club).A public omnibus travels this route from the Great Northern Railway’s station.

The Clifton Cinema was opened in November 1937 – Edge of the World. Owner John X. Prendergast. Architect: Frederick Dyer, York. Closed to film 17th October 1964 - Valley of the Eagle.

The current Picture House with the Essoldo feature mentioned below is available from the CTA price £7.50 plus £1.50 post & packaging from Jeremy Buck, the CTA sales Officer.

October 1st 2006

Our Administrator continues to update and refresh the Gould Gazetteer, some chapters of which can be found online here.

-oOo-

News reaches us from Member & Exhibitor Charles Morris about his Cinema Chain:

As you may know I closed the Regal, Lancaster, on the 24th August due to the Vue 6-screen multiplex opening the next day, but at the moment I still have the building and may stage a comeback. In the meantime I have taken over the Roxy, Ulverston, as from last Friday (22nd Sept). This is a 300-seat single screen in the balcony of the original Drury & Gomersall 1937 building. It has been split with bingo downstairs and cinema upstairs since 1974. It was originally opened by the James Brennan circuit (big in Barrow-in-Furness, Kendal and other parts of the North West in those days) but passed to exhibitor Henry Simpson soon afterwards. His family sold the building to the present owners, Brooks Wilkinson Ltd., in 1974.

-oOo-

Two well known and distinguished members of the Mercia Cinema Society have just published an extensive and lavishly illustrated article on the Essoldo Circuit. The article is the main (and only) feature in Picture House, the annual periodical of our friendly rivals, the Cinema Theatre Association. The authors were Author Frank Manders and Cinema Proprietor Charles Morris.

Our Chairman has delved into her archive and found a photo of the Wakefield Playhouse when it was an Essoldo Cinema. It is shown below for your enjoyment, click for a larger picture.

September 26th 2006

Book reviews have been received for both York and Medway from the PPT.

June 8th 2006 (updated 22/6)

Cinemas of the Medway Towns by John Clancy is now available, price £8.95, £7.90 Mercia Members. A large size PDF image of the front cover can be downloaded here. PRESS RELEASE HERE

April 6th 2006

PUBLICATION NEWS

	Cinemas of the Medway Towns by John Clancy is anticipated to be published in May, preliminary price £8.95, £7.90 Mercia Members. Order forms and further details will be included in the May Bioscope mailing. A large size PDF image of the front cover can be downloaded here.
Meanwhile, York Cinemas by Mervyn Gould is in advance preparation. Click on the image for a larger picture. Photograph copyright 2005 and design by Ian Houseman. Price will be £13.95, Member price to be determined. The price marked (£14.50)- is only illustrative.. Publication expected July / August. format as Durham and Boston & Spalding.

February 10th 2006

Obituary:

We regret to announce the death of Mercia Bioscope author Herbert H. ‘Al’ Allen, on Sunday 5th February, at 90 years of age. he was in an Australian nursing home, and had been ill for some months. His photographs and reminiscences were in three issues of the Mercia Bioscope, so he leaves behind a record of his cinema career, starting as a pre-sound rewind boy in West London. We are gateful for his contribution, and offer our respects to his widow and family.

January 25th 2006

The Mercia Cinema Society latest publication and their 25th anniversary offering, ‘Boston and Spalding Entertainment and the Aspland Howdens’, has been entered for the 2005 Society of Theatre Research Book Prize. A short-list from the entries will be prepared in March, and the winner anonunced at the beginning of April.

The judges are:        Yvonne Brewster OBE     Professor Jan McDonald MA, FRSE, FRSAMD, FRSA        Sheridan Morley

Actor and director Yvonne Brewster, who had already started The Barn, Jamaica’s first fully professional theatre company, was a founder-director of leading  British black theatre company Talawa and its artistic director until 2003. She has also served on many public committees and was nominated as one of the 100 Great Black Britons.

Professor McDonald is not only Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Glasgow but also Chair of the Glasgow Citizen’s Theatre.

Sheridan Morley is theatre critic, broadcaster, writer and director - and has also appeared as an actor.

The author and the publisher of the short-listed entries will be invited to the prize-naming ceremony.

Previous winners of the prize are listed on the Society of Theatre Research’s web-site - www.str.org.uk

January 22nd 2006

The committee will meet on Saturday 25 March in the Birmingham Shakespeare Memorial Library / Room at 2.00pm. Members are very welcome to attend to see and meet the officers. They cannot vote but may speak with the chairman’s permission. We would like to see particularly anyone interested in, at some point, taking office or joining the committee. (The venue is just outside the Central Library in Chamberlain Square - at the other end of New Street from the station.)

Mercia’s latest publication, ‘Boston and Spalding Entertainment . . .’   has been entered for the Society of Theatre Research 2005 Book Prize. Short-listed entries will be chosen in February, and the results will be announced in April.

January 9th 2006

We have updated the Committee page, including the addition of biographies. (One so far, from Mervyn)

December 11th 2005

We have a new TREASURER – IAN GREY. All credit to him, an already busy, family man, to take on this responsibility from the chairman, who has shouldered the burden this past year. Ian is already one of us – already a committee member and the Society’s web-master.

The committee is ageing, in in three cases, suffering from health problems. We need new blood. Any volunteers?

AGM 2006

This AGM, Saturday December 2 2006 should be the date of the next. Having just been to the Dominion Tottenham Court Road, this next time will be - somewhere in England

Does anyone want to find or offer a venue and organise it?

Preferably near a railway station as not everybody drives!

(Mervyn Gould)

September 11th 2005

The following article appeared in the Boston Standard recently: