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Cinema in EXMOUTH
Mervyn Gould

Exmouth is a south Devon holiday resort and former port on the eastern bank of the River Exe. It is downstream from Exeter, to the east lie Torbay and Paignton, and to the north is Dartmoor. The year-round population between the wars was 14,500, so as in many other seaside places, the public entertainment facilities were sustained by the summer holiday trade.

Savoy / Capitol / Public Hall
The building which housed the Savoy cinema was opened on 10th August 1877 as the Exmouth Public Hall, having been designed by J. Johnson, A.R.I.B.A., of London, and erected by a specially-formed company, at a cost of £3,500.
The elegant façade on Rolle Street had three entrances. The central entrance led to the cloakrooms and a small inner hall able to accommodate 200 and measuring 23' x 43'. There was also access to the upper stories. The other two entrances gave access to the main hall at the rear of the building. The cinema today uses the right-hand entrance, which originally led to the front stalls end of the hall. The other former entrance is now a take-away food shop. In the picture is the centre and the right-hand wing of the façade of the Savoy in late April 1963, photographed by the author when a school-boy. The pro-gramme showing was Notorious Landlady and 3.10 to Yuma. This was the same week that the Classic Film Festival was running at the Grand! A breadth of cinematic fare indeed.
The main hall measured 50' by 62' 3" and could accommodate 700 chairs on a flat floor. The hall was 35' 6" high with a 20’ deep stage. The proscenium width was 26’ wide, and the stage was 45' wide and 21’ deep with footlights, two traps (very unusual in a multi-purpose venue) and five dressing rooms.
By 1907, the lessee and manager was W. H. Crewe, and he and the family firm ran it for many years. They may well have bought the building from the original Public Hall company.
The local records show that film shows were taking place here from at least 1910. For a time there was a Vint’s Electric Palace in the town, and that operation could have been here. The dates fit, as Leon Vint was in financial trouble in 1914, and made bankrupt in 1915.
From 1914, F. W. Headington leased the hall for films, and he or his son was the resident manager. By 1920 Walter J. A. Bayley was running the operation as Proprietor & Resident Manager, when it was still known as the Public Hall. He charged a little less than his competitors at the King’s and New: his top was 1/3, and not 1s. 6d. Later, Bayley renamed the cinema the Capitol, and then installed British Cinephone sound. Seating was for 850, for by this time a balcony had been fitted in. In 1930, just before sound, he ran a daily matinée, had two changes of programme weekly, and charged 6d. to 1/6.
By 1936 the operation was run by J. E. Brooks for Messrs Crewe & Son and the name was changed to Savoy. B.T-H. (British Thompson-Houston) sound was installed. Prices then were 6d. to 2s.
After the war the operating company Savoy (Exmouth) Ltd was formed. The owners by then were the Hedges family, who also owned and ran the Forum, the Grand and the Regal. Their office was here, as all films were booked from the Savoy.
CinemaScope was installed in 1956, a Western Electric sound system fitted, and the seating reduced to 643. The cinema was leased by the Mayfair Circuit and Compton Cameo before being leased by C. C. W. ‘Charles’ Scott from 1962, by which time it was looking rather seedy. Films then were booked from his base in Torquay, as with all dates in his circuit.
By the last Kine Year Book of 1971, only the Savoy and the Royal / ex-Grand were left, with stated prices of 25p. and 30p. (really 5 and 6/-), and 4/6 and 5/6 at the Royal. (D-day was 11th February 1971.) By 1980, the Savoy was the sole cinematic survivor, still run by Charles Scott. The CTA Directory of Cinemas 1980 gives a reduction to 600 seats. It was then running with Westar projectors and Westrex sound. Programmes changed once a week, and there were two or three shows a day – presumably in the summer only, though. It was listed there as due to be twinned. Perhaps the money or the potential wasn’t there, for this did not happen, at least at that time and under that management.
The cinema closed in 1983 and became an amusement arcade. Not surprisingly: 1984 was to prove the nadir of cinema admissions; and fruit machines seemingly a never-ending source of profit.
In 1987 East Devon District Council purchased the building and spent £200,000 on repairs before asking Peter Hoare of Charles Scott cinemas to re-open the cinema, opening on 24th July 1987 with two screens: one in the stalls with 230 seats opened with The Living Daylights, and a second screen where the stage had been with 110 seats opened with Superman 4.
Later, a third screen seating 70 was opened on 22nd July 1994 in the former café - the old ground floor lesser hall referred to above. Previously, the entrance had been on a side street, but the conversion of a shop housed in the original right-hand doorway allowed the re-instatement of an entrance to the cinema at the front of the building. It is believed that the former balcony remains, but unused.
The cinema remains popular and has the advantage of a large student population in the town as extra audience potential.

Forum / New Picture House
The second cinema operation was the New Picture House, which was a conversion of Thorn's Commercial Coffee Palace of the Temperance Hotel. In 1907, this was listed as the Temperance Hall, run by one James Thorn. The lane off The Parade down the side of the building still showed the Palace name.
Initially run by Mrs N. S. Field holding a lease from around 1921, the cinema could seat just over 500. The resident manager was R. A. H. Strickland. By 1928 Leslie Bernard Thomas was running the show as Proprietor & Resident Manager, and soon Western Electric sound was installed. He booked the films himself, and ran three shows daily with tickets at 6d. to 2/4d., more expensive than the other two halls at the time. It was he who changed the name to the Forum in 1939.
After the war the cinema came under the same management as the other three cinemas in Exmouth and was registered as Forum (Exmouth) Ltd. The cinema closed c.1959 and became a bingo hall. The bingo operation ceased in March 2000 and now a nightclub called The Matrix occupies the building. It is said that internally the building has a fine Edwardian auditorium still with proscenium arch and balcony.

Regal / Manor Theatre
The Manor Theatre was built on S. Andrew’s Road beside the tranquil Manor Gardens. This multi-use building has seen many changes over the years but the name can still be seen painted on the front and rear of the building. It was built by Charles H. Palmer, who had an office in Rolle Street near the Capitol / Savoy, and lived locally at ‘Eastnor’ in Rolle Road, and became a cinema run by him from the early 1930s. There was seating for 630, a 20’ deep stage, 6 dressing rooms, and the proscenium width was 28’. The sound system was by B.T-H. Some live shows were still staged during the cinema years.
After the war the cinema came under the same management as the other three cinemas in Exmouth and was registered as the Regal (Exmouth) Ltd. It appears that this building retained its flat floor, as throughout the 1950s it operated as a ballroom, though for several years the management still kept up the annual Cinematograph Licence in case of need. Films returned in the 60s for a few years, according to K.Y.B. entries.
Dancing is still the main entertainment here, as it is now a nightclub with a banqueting suite attached.

Marquee Theatre / Manor Gardens Bandstand
The bandstand in the pleasure grounds was a concert party pitch for many years, with The Follies. In 1959 Peter Honri, whose grandfather Percy had first staged his long-running revue Concordia in 1906, leased the bandstand and put on Concordia Follies for the summer season. This had four editions, to lure back long-staying holiday-makers, and prices were kept low at 3/- and 2/-. The following year the venue was improved by Peter’s father Baynham Honri, amongst other aspects of his career being a cinema engineer, and drapes and tab tracks, stage lighting and sound installed (the then-latest saturable reactor dimmers), and the venue was renamed the Marquee Theatre. (Baynham had been President of the British Kinematograph Society in 1953.)

Pavilion Theatre / Pier Pavilion
The first Pavilion was the main theatre in Exmouth, having at one time been a skating rink, and was originally built in 1894. By 1907 it was the Pier Pavilion, and was available for touring shows through booking with the Secretary of the Pier Company. It ended as an amusement arcade before being demolished in c1956.
There was a council proposal to build an entertainment pavilion beside the tennis courts in 1932, at a cost of £10,000, with the possibility of a café being added later, but this did not happen. A much cut-down version opened in 1935, mainly used for concerts and dancing. This is explored in the following article.
During the four years in the 1980s, when the Savoy was closed, films were shown here once a week to keep up cinema going.

Royal / Grand / King's Picture Theatre
Originally a Wesleyan Chapel, the building was enlarged by the C. of E. to be St. Margaret's Church, Exeter Road. After this use it became the King's Hall c.1921, shortly after becoming the King's Theatre with a 17' deep stage behind a 28' pros. arch – the third cinema operation. The theatre could seat 550 and was run by the Oldham brothers – E. & H. - with prices from 5d. to 1/6, continuous performances, and two programmes weekly. Then in 1923 came Arthur Phillips, who changed the name to King's Picture Theatre, and later installed the British Acoustic sound system to become the first cinema in Exmouth to show a ‘talkie’, The Singing Fool on January 13 - 18th 1930. Prices for sound films were 6d to 1/6d., as were the Capitol’s.
Cinema Services Ltd, an Oscar Deutsch company, provided booking services for this cinema during part of the 1930s. By 1937 the cinema was run by Charles H. Palmer, who also ran the Regal. He renamed this cinema the Grand, a rather unlikely title given the ungainly frontage – hardly to be deemed a façade - seen below. After the war the new owner was the Grand (Exmouth) Ltd. CinemaScope was installed here and at the Savoy in 1956, reducing seating to 398.
For about five years in the late 50s and early 60s the Grand was home to the Exmouth Classical Film Festival, and the photograph here was taken by the author as a schoolboy customer of the 1963 Festival, (for the Laurence Harvey / Susan Shentall / Flora Robson Romeo and Juliet – see below).
The cinema was leased by Charles Scott c.1962/3 and then renamed the Royal – surely just as unlikely a title as Grand!

The cinema ran on under his circuit until closure came on 29th September 1979 with The Erotic Exploits of a Sexy Seducer.
After standing empty, the building was demolished in 1983, and shops and flats have since been built on the site.

Sources:
Kinematograph Year Books – various years
Peter Honri – Working the Halls
web-site – u.r.l. now lost
Gordon Chapman – Devon at the
Cinema
Film & TV Handbook 1990
The Gould Theatre Collection
Cinema & Theatre Construction

Festival Programme for 1963 From the Gould Theatre Collection.

‘BILL’ DEREK – MUSICIAN & MANAGER
Stephen Derek

The Exmouth cinemas article in the August Bioscope was given publicity in the local ‘Exmouth Journal’, and I would like to share a few memories of my teenage years during the 1950s and 60s, and with what can be gleaned from family archives, when my father, G. J. ‘Bill’ Derek, was in cinema management -

G. J. ‘Bill’ Derek was born in 1904, in Cheltenham, as Gilbert John Sparrow, and entered the world of entertainment after working as a piano tuner at the music shop of Dale, Forty & Co. in Cheltenham from 1918. From there, he became proficient on many instruments including piano, drums, alto saxophone, and double-bass.
For a time during the early twenties he branched into the Fred Karno comedy troupe – more well-known in the United States for the ‘Keystone Cops’ – before turning semi-professional with local bands where he developed his ‘Russian, Eccentric & Burlesque dancing’, and comedy routines. By the mid-twenties, he had formed a vaudeville double-act with Doris Hartley (billed as ‘England’s Finest Banjulele Banjo Girl’), which toured the music halls and theatres around the UK. She made her broadcasting debut on the BBC’s London Station on 9th August 1926. The partnership ceased in 1929.
Also during the 1920s, Bill’s first acquaintanceship with cinema was ‘filling in’, providing musical accompaniment to the silent films of the day, either by piano, or Compton or WurliTzer organ.
In the 30s, Bill formed his own Dance Orchestra in Cheltenham, when his wife Eve became the band’s singer. Two of the dates they played were the first two anniversary Film Balls of the opening of the Gaumont Palace there, in 1934 and 35.
In January 1938, Bill and Eve moved to Peterborough, where he became resident drummer and percussionist of the Embassy Theatre, which had just opened on 1st November 1937. Here he worked under musical director Arthur Cowen. When the war came, he added the duties of Air Raid warden and fire-watching to his pit work.
The family – now with son – moved to Devon in 1946, when Bill was appointed manager of Exmouth’s sea-front Pavilion. Here, he arranged a popular and varied programme throughout the post-war years. He compèred the Sunday evening ‘Palm Court’ concerts, having composed and arranged its signature tune ‘Magnolia Time Down South’ (of which a few copies of the privately-commissioned shellac recording still exist).

The 1933 sea-front Pavilion seen in 1948; built on a greatly reduced scale for £5,000 (instead of the original plan to rival Torquay’s Pavilion costing £15,000). Of the original fly-tower, only a vestige was built to house the safety curtain and a few scenic cloths.

All illustrations in this article are from the author’s collection.

The Pier Pavilion seen in 1958 as an amuse-ment arcade. It was demolished later that year.

David E. Nye’s architectural impressions of his Peterborough Embassy Theatre in the 1937 Opening Souvenir. He was also architect for the Shipman & King cinema circuit, and the Bancroft’s had a financial involvement in their Reigate Majestic of 1935.