Electric Centenary
The oldest working cinema in the UK, the Electric Cinema in Birmingham, is celebrating it's centenary. The cinema, built in a converted taxi rank, showed its first silent movie on 27 December 1909.
The cinema operated until 1931 when it became an amusement arcade for a short period. It returned to being a cinema in 1936 and went through several incarnations with names ranging from the Select Cinema, Tatler News Theatre, The Jacey, The Classic, and The Tivoli. It returned to it's original Electric name in 1993 before closing in December 2003. In 2004 the cinema was bought by Thomas Lawes Media Ltd and it underwent a conversion to a centre for film making and exhibition. It went through a £250,000 refit and restoration, returning the building to it's original 1930s Art Deco look using pictures from that period.
The Electric Website can be accessed at: www.theelectric.co.uk/
The cinema operated until 1931 when it became an amusement arcade for a short period. It returned to being a cinema in 1936 and went through several incarnations with names ranging from the Select Cinema, Tatler News Theatre, The Jacey, The Classic, and The Tivoli. It returned to it's original Electric name in 1993 before closing in December 2003. In 2004 the cinema was bought by Thomas Lawes Media Ltd and it underwent a conversion to a centre for film making and exhibition. It went through a £250,000 refit and restoration, returning the building to it's original 1930s Art Deco look using pictures from that period.
A special screening is due to be held of some of the archived material on 21 December with interviews from former staff and customers, accompanied by the music of Steve Tovey, the UK's last full-time cinema organist.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/8415188.stm
The Electric Website can be accessed at: www.theelectric.co.uk/
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