Aberdeen has been the host of several theatres and concert halls through history. Some of them have been converted or destroyed over the years.
The Theatre Royal was located on Theatre lane, in Aberdeen. It was built in 1789 and demolished in 1877 when replaced by the Tivoli although the same source says that another Theatre Royal in Aberdeen is now a church. [1]
The Tivoli is located on Guild Street. "It was built in 1872 as Her Majesty's Theatre by C. J. Phipps and James Matthews. The auditorium was later rebuilt by Frank Matcham in 1897 and again in 1909. [2] [3] In 2009 it was bought by a trust, with the intention of renovating it. Work on the exterior work started November 2010, and while it was scheduled to last six months, [4] [5] it took until 2013 until it reopened.
His Majesty's Theatre in Aberdeen is the largest theatre in north-east Scotland, seating 1,470. The theatre is sited on Rosemount Viaduct, opposite the city's Union Terrace Gardens. It was designed by Frank Matcham and opened in 1906. [6] The theatre is managed by Aberdeen Performing Arts which also runs The Music Hall, Aberdeen Box Office and the Lemon Tree.
Aberdeen Arts Centre is a theatre on King Street in Aberdeen, Scotland. The 350-seater auditorium regularly plays host to music and drama events and is the focus for much of Aberdeen's amateur dramatic activities. The theatre is on two levels, with an upper and a lower gallery for audiences. There is a small orchestra pit and behind the stage there are dressing and rehearsal rooms for the shows and other projects such as local drama groups.
The Lemon Tree is a studio theatre that hosts touring companies and occasionally generates in-house productions. Operation was transferred from a local trust to Aberdeen Performing Arts in 2008.
Belmont Cinema is in Belmont Street. The Belmont is now an arts cinema which shows films that generally would not be shown in a chain cinema. It is part of the Picturehouse Cinemas network of arthouse cinemas.
The Capitol Theatre is located on Union Street. It has also been known as the Capitol Super Cinema or the Electric Theatre. The building is Category B statutory listed. [7]
The Capitol Cinema opened in February 1933, on the site of the earlier Electric Cinema, seating 2,100 to the plans of architects AGR Mackenzie and Clement George. In 1933, the Capitol was the most luxurious cinema, with full stage facilities and a Compton Organ. The Capitol closed for regular film showings in the 1960s, but it was used also for occasional rock concerts until the late 1990s; it was largely moth-balled since 1998, except for the use of the restaurant as a bar called "Oscars". The B-listed Art deco interior was extremely well preserved at that point. [8] Permission was granted in 2002–03 for conversion to nightclubs, which saw the auditorium split horizontally to form two large bar-clubs, and the rear stage wall cut open to create a large glass wall and additional entrances. The original restaurant is now out of use. Plans to restore and return the Compton pipe organ to the building have never taken place. [9] [10]
In 2011, Aberdeen City Council has consulted The Theatres Trust on the partial demolition of the Capitol Theatre in order to create a hotel accommodation with an associated access and parking [11] [7] The plan, submitted by "Prime Properties Aberdeen c/o A B Robb Ltd", proposes "a change of use of bar/nightclub to Class 7 Hotel with associated part demolition of the existing auditorium and development of hotel accommodation and refurbishment of internal features and associated access and parking" [12] The conditions set by the council however included the approval of: [13]
Also, that the restored art deco café/tea room shown on drawings should not be used unless fully open to the general public, unless the planning authority has given written consent for a variation.
The Palace Theatre, located on Bridge Street, was built following destruction by fire in 1896 of the People's Palace on the same site. The interior of the new Palace, originally with two tiers, was completely gutted to the shell walls in 1929 and rebuilt, re-opening as a cinema with one balcony in 1931. The four-storey asymmetrical granite front survives largely intact, but this is a crude design of industrial quality - plain with a pediment over the three central bays and three large doorways with thin broken segmental pediments. [14]
The Music Hall is a concert hall in Aberdeen, Scotland, formerly the city's Assembly Rooms, located on Union Street in the city centre. It was designed by architect Archibald Simpson, costing £11,500 when it was originally constructed in 1822, opened to the public as a concert hall in 1859, and was extensively renovated in the 1980s. [15]
The Beach Ballroom is an art deco building on the sea front of Aberdeen, Scotland. It is home to one of Scotland's finest dance floors - famous for its bounce - which floats on fixed steel springs.
Elphinstone Hall is the hall of the University of Aberdeen. It is located on their Kings College Campus.
The Aberdeen Art Gallery is mostly known for its art exhibitions. However, they also have receptions areas available for custom events.
Thomas White Lamb was a Scottish-born, American architect. He was one of the foremost designers of theaters and cinemas of the 20th century.
Francis Matcham was an English architect who specialised in the design of theatres and music halls. He worked extensively in London, predominantly under Moss Empires for whom he designed the Hippodrome in 1900, Hackney Empire (1901), Coliseum (1903) and Palladium (1910). His last major commission before retirement was the Victoria Palace (1911) for the variety magnate Alfred Butt. During his 40-year career, Matcham was responsible for the design and construction of over 90 theatres and the redesign and refurbishment of a further 80 throughout the United Kingdom.
His Majesty's Theatre in Aberdeen is the largest theatre in north-east Scotland, seating more than 1,400. The theatre is sited on Rosemount Viaduct, opposite the city's Union Terrace Gardens. It was designed by Frank Matcham and opened in 1906.
The Theatre Royal is the oldest theatre in Glasgow and the longest running in Scotland. Located at 282 Hope Street, its front door was originally round the corner in Cowcaddens Street. It currently accommodates 1,541 people and is owned by Scottish Opera. The theatre opened in 1867, adopting the name Theatre Royal two years later. It is also the birthplace of Howard & Wyndham Ltd, owners and managers of theatres in Scotland and England until the 1970s, created by its chairman Baillie Michael Simons in 1895. It was Simons who as a cultural entrepreneur of his day also promoted the building of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and Glasgow's International Exhibitions of 1888 and 1901.
The Capitol is an historic Australian theatre on Swanston Street in the central business district (CBD) of Melbourne, Victoria. Opened in 1924 as part of the Capitol House building, the art deco theatre was designed by American husband and wife architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin. It is the oldest of Melbourne's large picture palaces and is known for its extravagant decor and abstract motifs, including an intricate geometric ceiling containing thousands of coloured lamps designed to evoke the walls of a crystalline cave.
The Tivoli Theatre is a theatre in Aberdeen, Scotland, opened in 1872 as Her Majesty's Theatre and was built by the Aberdeen Theatre and Opera House Company Ltd, under architects James Matthews of Aberdeen and Charles J. Phipps, a London-based architect brought in to consult. The auditorium was rebuilt in 1897 by theatre architect Frank Matcham, but then closed temporarily in 1906, following the opening of the larger His Majesty's Theatre. The smaller theatre was extensively reconstructed in 1909, again by Frank Matcham, and re-opened in July 1910 as the Tivoli. The Tivoli was refurbished again in 1938.
Charles John Phipps was an English architect known for more than 50 theatres he designed in the latter half of the 19th century, including several important ones in London. He is noted for his design of the Theatre Royal, Exeter, which caught fire in 1887, killing 186 visitors.
William Robert 'Bertie' Crewe was one of the leading English theatre architects in the boom of 1885 to 1915.
The State Cinema is a Grade II* Listed building in Grays, Essex. Designed by F. G. M. Chancellor under Matcham & Co., it opened in 1938 as one of the most modern cinemas of its type at the time with seating for 2200 people. As a cinema, it closed in 1988 but has held numerous events and been used for various purposes since. Historic England describe the cinema as being "one of the best preserved of the super cinemas of the late 1930s."
The Plaza is a Grade II* listed art deco single-screen cinema and theatre in Stockport, Greater Manchester, England. It opened in 1932, its construction having involved the excavation of the sandstone cliff behind it. After an initial closure in 1966 and a subsequent period in use as a bingo hall by Rank Leiure, it has now been restored as a cinema and theatre, showing films and staging live shows.
The Plaza Cinema is an art deco cinema in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, owned by Merlin Cinemas. It was built by Odeon Cinemas and known as the Odeon Weston-super-Mare until 2023. It was designed by Thomas Cecil Howitt and is a Grade II listed building.
John Stanley Coombe Beard FRIBA, known professionally as J. Stanley Beard, was an English architect known for designing many cinemas in and around London.
The Capitol Theatre is a former cinema and concert venue at 431 Union Street in Aberdeen, Scotland.
Henry Eli White, also known as Harry White, was a New Zealand-born architect best known for the many theatres and cinemas he designed in New Zealand and Australia in the 1910s and 1920s. Many of the major surviving historic venues in the two countries are White designs, including the St. James Theatre, Wellington, St. James Theatre, Auckland, the Capitol Theatre and State Theatre in Sydney, and the Palais Theatre and the interiors of the Princess Theatre and Athenaeum Theatre in Melbourne. He also designed the City Hall and the attached Civic Theatre in Newcastle, New South Wales.
The Embassy Cinema is a former cinema in the town of Chadwell Heath, Greater London. It was once known, among locals, as The Gaumont. It was designed in an art deco style, with a streamline moderne interior, by Harry Weston in 1934. The building is situated on the border of Redbridge and Barking & Dagenham, in the Chadwell Heath District Centre. The cinema closed in 1966 and became a Bingo Hall. In 2015, following the closure of the Bingo Hall, it was then used as a wedding hall/banqueting suite. The building was listed as an Asset of Community Value by the 'Chadwell Heath South Residents' Association' in August 2017 and is currently the focus of a major cinema restoration project.
The Odyssey Cinema is a film theatre in the city of St Albans, Hertfordshire, in the United Kingdom. It is a locally listed Art Deco building, located on London Road, around 0.7 kilometres (0.43 mi) east of St Albans Cathedral. Originally built in 1931 as the Capitol Cinema, the current building stands on the site of an earlier film theatre, the Alpha Picture Palace. This former cinema was of particular historical significance as it was opened in 1904 by the film-making pioneer Arthur Melbourne-Cooper and is considered to have been the first cinema in Hertfordshire.
The Empire Theatre was a theatre in Longton in Stoke-on-Trent, England. It was later a cinema and a bingo hall; it was destroyed by fire in 1992.
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