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Cinema gets revamp
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The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has pledged £3 million to
restore the region’s much-loved Tyneside Cinema – the
last surviving purpose-built newsreel cinema in the UK still operating
as a cinema.
The money will be used to return the former News Theatre to the
way it looked in its 1930s heyday and will enable it to offer an
experience of archive newsreels not available since the 1960s.
Keith Bartlett, Heritage Lottery fund manager for the North East,
says: “the Tyneside Cinema is an important part of Newcastle’s
past and an excellent example of an early British cinema.
"It will be fantastic to see it restored and enabling people
in the North East to have a unique insight into what life used to
be like in the 1930s and 40s.”
Mark Dobson, chief executive of the Tyneside Cinema, says: “the
Tyneside Cinema has a special place in the lives of so many people,
both in the region and beyond.
"We are thrilled that we will be to restore this unique piece
of British heritage and at the same time expand and extend the building
so that we engage ever more people with independent film from across
the world.”
Mike Figgis, the Newcastle-born film director, who is also a patron
of the cinema, adds: “this is a very significant moment for
the Tyneside Cinema and the North East.
"The grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund recognises the importance
of the cinema as an artistic institution with its roots in the past
but also with a clear vision for the future.
“As a teenager on Tyneside I saw many great films at this
cinema and as the multiplexes began to flourish I feared the worst.
"I gladly gave my support to the place and have always believed
that it has a viable position within the culture of the North East
both for now and the future.
"I will continue to give my full support to the Tyneside Cinema.”
The Tyneside Cinema, which was built in 1937, is one of the finest
surviving purpose-built newsreel cinemas in Britain.
An unusually elaborate example of the genre, it was designed by
local architect George Bell and commissioned by local film entrepreneur
Dixon Scott who ran several cinemas across Tyneside in the early
years of the 20th century.
In 1937, the cinema became the home of the Tyneside Film Society,
the origin of the Tyneside Cinema itself which, by the late 1950s,
had grown into the largest film society in the UK outside London.
Geoff Cook, chairman of the trustees for the Tyneside Cinema, says:
“this is splendid news for the Tyneside and everyone who has
worked hard to put the application together.
"The support of the Heritage Lottery Fund is the first giant
step towards achieving an exciting future for the cinema.
"We will be able to encourage the creativity of future film-makers
while celebrating the Tyneside’s unique past.”
The trust wants to encourage as many people as possible to visit
and learn about the cinema and is planning an innovative education
programme which will focus on three themes.
‘Reminiscences’ will be a film-making project involving
young people and senior residents which looks at the role the cinema
has played in news reporting.
‘Digital story-telling’ will chart the industrial heritage
of Tyneside through newsreel footage and will engage with older
residents in Newcastle.
‘News Reel Primary School’ will be a new education
and filmmaking activity programme for younger children.
The News Theatre's archives include menus for its café (now
the Tyneside Coffee Rooms) where cinema-goers could enjoy a pre-show
dish of kidneys on toast for the princely sum of 1 shilling, as
Mrs Jean Murray, an avid cinema-goer in the 1950s, remembers.
“In the early 1950s a group of girls from work would meet
in the Coffee Rooms (of the Tyneside Cinema) after a game of tennis
every Saturday.
"We would have kidneys and gravy on toast which was delightful
– I’ve never tasted anything like it since!”
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