History just pasted from cinematreasures.org
Located in the Merseyside seaside town of Southport. After the Opera House burned down in December 1929, the site was cleared and architect George E. Tonge prepared plans for a new theatre which opened on 19th December 1932 with Gladys Cooper in the mystery drama “Firebird”, direct from the Playhouse Theatre, London. It was, and remains, a glorious exercise in Art Deco style, inside and out.
Situated on the premiere Southport thoroughfare of Lord Street at the corner with Kingsway, the Garrick Theatre initially operated as a live venue only. The theatre was well provided with front of house space and had a spacious auditorium on two levels (plus boxes) seating 1,600 (later reduced to 1,500). The original colour scheme was yellow and gold with green and black highlights, all lighting was indirect via troughs except for a chandelier in the centre of the balcony recess. There are four boxes on either side of the stage. The theatre was advertised as the most beautiful in Europe upon opening.
The stage was particularly large, and was designed to accommodate touring drama, musicals opera and ballet and a pantomime was produced at Christmas. The proscenium arch is 50 feet wide. Live shows ended on 19th January 1957 with the pantomime “Robin Hood on Ice”. There was an open colonnade terrace containing an ornamental garden on the top of the Lord Street elevation, which was used in summer months.
The Garrick Theatre was sold to the Newcastle upon Tyne based Essoldo Cinemas chain in January 1957 and the follow-spot box was converted into a projection booth. It opened as a cinema on 21st January 1957 with Elvis Presley in “Love Me Tender” & Maureen O'Hara in “Miracle on 34th Street”. It was briefly re-named Essoldo in the late-1950’s, but the Garrick Theatre name was soon re-instated. There were occasional stage shows, but these were not a success and from May 1962 it screened films only. During 1963 bingo was introduced on Sundays and Fridays. On 16th November 1963 it was closed as a cinema with the film “Tom Jones” starring Albert Finney. It was converted into a Lucky 7 Bingo Club (from 1984 a Top Rank Bingo Club and finally Mecca). It was closed in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In April 2021 it was announced by Mecca that the closure would be permanent, as their lease was about to expire on September 28, 2021.
Logic would suggest that the Garrick Theatre be returned to theatre use and the single floored Southport Theatre be turned into a modern bingo hall for Mecca - to the benefit of both parties!
On 29th July 1999, the former Garrick Theatre was designated a Grade II Listed building by English Heritage.
Some more detailed info on the building design can be found here: http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/SouthportTheatres.htm
Had a nosey at this a year or two ago now when it had some scaffolding up the back. Put off by various cameras and too many people being around I gave it a miss and walked straight in to try and get permission for a nosey. The guy on the desk at the time was a total bell piece and binned me off.
I’d then seen some of scrappy's pictures on Flickr from a permission visit he did a few years ago, and well yeah. It looked bloody lovely.
Saw it pop up on here as a permission visit and LBE commented saying he’d been in so that was it.
Bit of a faff but we managed to get in, it was a pain to shoot due to the varying lights and typically grim bingo colour scheme. I think we managed to get around everywhere that was accessible, without getting heavy handed. It seems people are checking in on the place, but it looks like it’s deffo the end as a Mecca at least.
It’s in good nick though so hopefully it will be saved and used for something else soon before it goes the same way as the Grand up the road.
A 1938 aerial photo of the theatre taken from Britain from Above
Old external as a theatre
1930’s external
As it is today
I’ll start from the top and work my way down.
Projector room, originally built for the spot lights for the theatre, it was later converted for use as a projector room. Pretty cramped and awkward to photograph but well worth the effort to see.
Looking down to the stage/screen from the projection room
You can see the projection hatches in the ceiling
These old heaters were pretty interesting
Not much to be found in the roof space, pretty clean and well maintained. I’m sure Dweeb will still be able to find something amongst the insulation though!
This window has annoyingly had a bad repair job done to some of the lead. Poor show.
There were quite a lot of old toilets around the whole theatre that had clearly been out of use for donkeys years. These being one of them, just filled with the usual boxes of Christmas deccies and also tons of Top Rank paper work.
One of many disused rooms. Photo’s of these are quite poor, I didn’t, want to be that guy smashing my torch about everywhere near the windows, but you get the gist.
Caretakers maintenance room/workshop
One of the several lounge areas
And another
Yes to the minging carpets/upholstery, of which there was plenty.
Located in the Merseyside seaside town of Southport. After the Opera House burned down in December 1929, the site was cleared and architect George E. Tonge prepared plans for a new theatre which opened on 19th December 1932 with Gladys Cooper in the mystery drama “Firebird”, direct from the Playhouse Theatre, London. It was, and remains, a glorious exercise in Art Deco style, inside and out.
Situated on the premiere Southport thoroughfare of Lord Street at the corner with Kingsway, the Garrick Theatre initially operated as a live venue only. The theatre was well provided with front of house space and had a spacious auditorium on two levels (plus boxes) seating 1,600 (later reduced to 1,500). The original colour scheme was yellow and gold with green and black highlights, all lighting was indirect via troughs except for a chandelier in the centre of the balcony recess. There are four boxes on either side of the stage. The theatre was advertised as the most beautiful in Europe upon opening.
The stage was particularly large, and was designed to accommodate touring drama, musicals opera and ballet and a pantomime was produced at Christmas. The proscenium arch is 50 feet wide. Live shows ended on 19th January 1957 with the pantomime “Robin Hood on Ice”. There was an open colonnade terrace containing an ornamental garden on the top of the Lord Street elevation, which was used in summer months.
The Garrick Theatre was sold to the Newcastle upon Tyne based Essoldo Cinemas chain in January 1957 and the follow-spot box was converted into a projection booth. It opened as a cinema on 21st January 1957 with Elvis Presley in “Love Me Tender” & Maureen O'Hara in “Miracle on 34th Street”. It was briefly re-named Essoldo in the late-1950’s, but the Garrick Theatre name was soon re-instated. There were occasional stage shows, but these were not a success and from May 1962 it screened films only. During 1963 bingo was introduced on Sundays and Fridays. On 16th November 1963 it was closed as a cinema with the film “Tom Jones” starring Albert Finney. It was converted into a Lucky 7 Bingo Club (from 1984 a Top Rank Bingo Club and finally Mecca). It was closed in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In April 2021 it was announced by Mecca that the closure would be permanent, as their lease was about to expire on September 28, 2021.
Logic would suggest that the Garrick Theatre be returned to theatre use and the single floored Southport Theatre be turned into a modern bingo hall for Mecca - to the benefit of both parties!
On 29th July 1999, the former Garrick Theatre was designated a Grade II Listed building by English Heritage.
Some more detailed info on the building design can be found here: http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/SouthportTheatres.htm
Had a nosey at this a year or two ago now when it had some scaffolding up the back. Put off by various cameras and too many people being around I gave it a miss and walked straight in to try and get permission for a nosey. The guy on the desk at the time was a total bell piece and binned me off.
I’d then seen some of scrappy's pictures on Flickr from a permission visit he did a few years ago, and well yeah. It looked bloody lovely.
Saw it pop up on here as a permission visit and LBE commented saying he’d been in so that was it.
Bit of a faff but we managed to get in, it was a pain to shoot due to the varying lights and typically grim bingo colour scheme. I think we managed to get around everywhere that was accessible, without getting heavy handed. It seems people are checking in on the place, but it looks like it’s deffo the end as a Mecca at least.
It’s in good nick though so hopefully it will be saved and used for something else soon before it goes the same way as the Grand up the road.
A 1938 aerial photo of the theatre taken from Britain from Above
Old external as a theatre
1930’s external
As it is today
I’ll start from the top and work my way down.
Projector room, originally built for the spot lights for the theatre, it was later converted for use as a projector room. Pretty cramped and awkward to photograph but well worth the effort to see.
Looking down to the stage/screen from the projection room
You can see the projection hatches in the ceiling
These old heaters were pretty interesting
Not much to be found in the roof space, pretty clean and well maintained. I’m sure Dweeb will still be able to find something amongst the insulation though!
This window has annoyingly had a bad repair job done to some of the lead. Poor show.
There were quite a lot of old toilets around the whole theatre that had clearly been out of use for donkeys years. These being one of them, just filled with the usual boxes of Christmas deccies and also tons of Top Rank paper work.
One of many disused rooms. Photo’s of these are quite poor, I didn’t, want to be that guy smashing my torch about everywhere near the windows, but you get the gist.
Caretakers maintenance room/workshop
One of the several lounge areas
And another
Yes to the minging carpets/upholstery, of which there was plenty.
