SPECIAL
FEATURE
Save the Savoy, Kettering
a rare example of a small-town
30s theatre
In a side street of Kettering, a small
Midlands town, lies a 1930s building abandoned, and due for demolition
shortly; another cinema casualty of the multiplex boom. Well, yes
and no. Certainly this cinema closed (in 1997) as a twin-cinema operation
in the former circle and bingo in the former stalls, but the fly
tower announces the fact that it was a dual-purpose building.
Not many theatres were built in the 30s. Well-known provincial examples
are the Oxford New (1934), Coventry Hippodrome (1937 - demolished), and
Dudley Hippodrome (1938 - bingo). Others were replaced after fires – the
Theatres Royal Norwich Royal and King’s Lynn, for example.
As was the case here. A building which had been the Avenue Theatre of
1903, and later the Coliseum, burned down in 1937, and this, the Savoy,
was opened as the replacement in the following year. It boasted both
projection and full stage facilities. Unusually for this period, the
stage cellar contained trap machinery, when older theatres had removed
this and installed revolves. The proscenium width was 43’, the
stage depth 23’, and the grid above 60’ feet high. There
was a drop iron – left plain white with S A F E T Y C U R T A I
N in 2’-high letters across it. Backstage there were 7 dressing
rooms and a band room. The auditorium runs parallel to the road, with
the main entrance at the right-hand end, and the stage door and scenery
dock doors at the other. Films played in the summer, and theatre shows
appeared during the winter. Seating capacity was approx. 1,150, and the
film sound was by R.C.A.
The facade was massive, but fairly plain, outlined with neon (the houses
across the street, apparently, needed no electricity in their front room
and bedroom), with a vertical name sign. A large central panel advertised
the week’s programme on a sign-writer poster. The auditorium was
decorated with Grecian garden murals each side from the balcony to the
ante-proscenium, which had ventilation grilles and concealed lighting.
The opening, on Saturday 21st May 1938, was a film performance with Big
City as the main feature.
Clifton circuit ownership
The building had been erected by Jack Sherwood, the son-in-law of the
original theatre owner, but he later sold to the Clifton Circuit, based
in Birmingham. This was principally a cinema group, but Leon Salberg
of the Birmingham Alexandra was a director, so it is not surprising
to find his nephew Reginald’s repertory company resident in 1947.
The facilities are listed in The Stage Guide of 1946, when the breadth
of stage entertainment is given as ‘Variety, straight plays,
musical comedy, repertory’. The population then about 35,000,
and the Guide notes that this was mainly working class, so making it
an even rarer example of a theatre of the time.
For three seasons, 1949-51, the Northampton Repertory Company ran seasons,
and there were pantos, and once, a stage circus. In 1955 the film starlet
Joan Rice acted with the resident company for the week in Arthur Miller’s
A View from the Bridge.
Star Cinema circuit
The Clifton was winding down during the later 50s, and Walter Ekhart’s
Star circuit took over from 1st April 1961. They brought in part-time
bingo but there were still the amateur shows and panto. During the 60s
habits and audiences changed, and the Savoy name disappeared on Sunday
15th February 1968 after a matinée of Bonnie and Clyde.
The circle was shut off, the stalls became full-time bingo, and upstairs
was the Studio, opening on 29th September with The Dirty Dozen. This
operation lasted until the end of the run of Lady Carline Lamb on 7th
April 1973. It was the time of twinnings and triplings of cinemas, and
this is what happened here. The bingo operation stayed as it was, whilst
a longitudinal wall split the upper are in half to produce Studios One
and Two. A fortnight later films were back on the screens – The
Ten Commandments and Cabaret.
The building went to EMI about the mid-70s, who sold it to Hamblin Leisure
Services, which ran the bingo, and leased the cinema operation back to
Star! Films ran on for another 10 years, but ceased on Saturday 24 July
1985, when, for the first time since regular exhibitions began, there
were no film performances in Kettering.
Ohio
A local operator with shows in the locality, Ashley Wyatt, bought the
cinema business, cleaned the place up, and re-opened Number one with
Return to Oz at Easter 1986 as the Ohio (apparently Kettering is twinned
with a town of that name in the United States). The second screen reopened
after a time.
More hope came in 1990, when Brian MacFarlane took over, installed luxury
seating (capacities 160 and 140), and put in new projectors and Dolby
stereo sound. Alas, locals didn’t support him sufficiently, and
Odeon multiplex opened on the edge of the town, and cinema ceased in
1997.
Bingo ceased on the ground floor, and since then the building has stood
empty, and been attacked by vandals.
Planning permission has been granted for demolition
and flats on the site. No-one seems to realize there is a formerly
fully stage-play licensed theatre here. But who knows what is left – it
deserves a theatre archaeology survey.
Earlier use of the site
On Russell Street, a side street in the centre near the railway, arose
the Avenue Theatre, which was opened by Frank Payne on August Bank Holiday
Monday, 3rd August 1903. It had been built by his father Thomas, with
him and his brother William.
By chance, two playbills have survived and are in the author’s
collection, both from 1905. Performances were once-nightly at 8.00p.m.,
and prices then were: Orchestra Stalls, 2/6d, Stalls 2s., Pit (rear)
Stalls first two rows 1/6d, the rest 1s., Balcony 1s., Pit 9d., Gallery
6d. Early door admission was 3d. extra, and there was half-price to all
parts (except the Gallery) at 9 o’clock, and seats could be booked
at no extra fee at the theatre from 11 – 1.00. The Musical Director
was C. S. Payne, presumably another of the family, the Scenic Artist
J. W. Woodward, Stage Carpenter (the then term - later called the Resident
Stage Manager) C. Middleton, and the Property Master J. W. Robinson.
By The Plucky Nipper in November, prices had come down to 2s. to 4d.,
and the bill advises prices were to be announced each week. By then,
there was a booking office opposite the theatre at 93 Russell Street.
As well as plays, there were the occasional Bioscope exhibitions in the
hall.
The roller-skating craze of the 1910s caught the building, and for two
years it became a rink, but was re-seated and re-opened, with a single
projector in a rear stalls projection box, as the Coliseum in 1910.
The Coliseum ran with pictures and stage shows through the war and the
20s. in 1928 Frank Payne died, and the theatre closed, but then ran on
but put up for auction. There, it did not reach the reserve, and from
August 1931 Jack Sherwood, Payne’s son-in-law, took over the running
of the theatre. He put improvements in had, which included a new projection,
in the conventional rear-of-balcony position, with new Kalee VII projectors
and a British Talking Pictures sound system. The new horns on the stage
were on a trolley, and the perforated sound screen was flown to allow
stage performances to continue (probably the silent screen had been the
plastered rear stage wall). This remodelling resulted in the building
from reopening on 3rd August 1932 being the New Coliseum.
With sound pictures and shows, the revamped building ran on, with revamped
seats, stage drapes and later, new stage lighting until 1937. In the
early hours of Tueday 6th April, the building was found to be ablaze,
burning down with the exception of one wall and the boiler-house chimney.
The cause was thought to be an extinguished cigarette. Both the film
programme, in the fire-box operating box, and the cinema cat, were all
otherwise that remained.
Sherwood was obviously well-insured, and must have been convinced that
his business would survive, in spite of the recent openings of the re-constructed
Victoria as the Odeon (September 1936), and the High Street Regal for
the Cohen & Rafer circuit (December 1936 – later the Granada).
Kettering's entertainment history is in Maurice
Thornton's 'Let's Go To the Pictures ... A Hundred Years of Cinema
in Kettering'. Hooded Lion Books
147
Russell Street Kettering Northamptonshire NN16 0EW ISBN:
0 95370372 2 X. H'b. £16.95 |
