Friday
12 January 2001
Time capsule cinema may re-open
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Frozen
in time, The Gaiety is just as it was when it closed 50
years ago
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One
of the oldest cinemas in the South West which has remained virtually
untouched for the last fifty years could now be re-opened.
The one hundred year old Gaiety cinema in Appledore was once a focal
point for the local community. The last picture show at the Gaiety
was nearly fifty years ago - probably Tommy Steeles The Duke War Jeans.
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Museum
pieces: although the projectors are still in place they are
too old to use again
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A look inside though
reveals that this is a building frozen in time. Ideal say the enthusiasts
who would like to restore it.
Clip:The first time I entered this building I was covered in Goose
pimpers. The sense of history and excitement that a lot of people
had walked through those doors to see a film must have been incredible.
When the Gaiety was built in 1894 it was as a theatre. It became a
cinema twenty years later with room to seat nearly three hundred people.
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Cheap
seats: prices will have to go up if the Gaiety re-opens
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But the back row
of the Gaiety was not a place for star crossed lovers. If they were
caught in too amorous a clinch the usherette would come over armed
with a stick and give them a sharp tap across the knuckles.
The Gaiety closed just as other bigger cinemas were being built, like
the Drake in Plymouth, which itself became a victim of competition
fifty years later.
But while the Gaiety may be ripe for restoration, its ancient projectors
aren't. They have become museum pieces.
You
can learn more about the history of cinema in Devon in a new book
"Devon at the Cinema" by Gordon Chapman. It traces the growth of the
cinema from its very beginnings at the turn of the century to the
present day. It's published by Halsgrove. |
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