Cardiff isn’t short of entertainment venues, for music there’s the International Arena, for comedy try St David’s Hall and for theatrical performances we have the New Theatre and Wales Millennium Centre. Most of these venues, however, were built in the last 30 years - even the New Theatre on Park Place only dates back to 1906! Which begs the question, what did people living in the 19th and early-20th centuries do for entertainment? Well, quite simply, they went to the theatre - although back in the mid-19th century they would have been spoilt for choice.

In this first part we will focus on the the lost theatres and cinemas in the east of the city centre - more specifically around the Queen Street area.

Theatre Royal, Crockherbtown

Cardiff’s first theatre was actually built outside the town walls. Described as “a handsome new building” the Theatre Royal opened in 1827 in Crockherbtown a few hundred yards outside the east gate of the city walls. Due to the location it was often referred to as “Crockherbtown Theatre”, a newspaper article prior to opening proclaimed that:

“Old Cardiff almost lost it’s head with delight when it viewed the swelling outlines of Crockherbtown Theatre”

Opening night was 5 September 1827; customers were treated to a performance of ‘The Honeymoon’ followed by what was described as a “farce with brilliant assemblance”. Ticket prices were 3/- (3 shillings) for a box seat, 2/- for a seat in the pit or 1/- to sit on the hard benches of the gallery, colloquially known as “the lions den” on account of it’s cage-like railings and raucous atmosphere. For regular theatre-goers there was a ‘Silver Ticket’ scheme, a one-off payment granting them admission to any performance they wished to attend (an early version of a cinema subscription card).

It is believed that the theatre was run by gentlemen who weren’t too concerned about it being a money-making venture (or if not they were to be very disappointed!). Aside from financial problems, the pit of the theatre suffered regularly from flooding from the nearby farmlands, until the highly beneficial excavation of the nearby Dock Feeder in 1836 eased the flooding. Stories at the time claim that some performers brought fishing lines to the venue, casting them into the Dock Feeder from the window of their changing rooms while they were waiting to go on stage.

Regular performances were held at the theatre for 50 years, until the early hours of 12 December 1877 when a passer-by reported seeing smoke rising from behind the theatre. The alarm was raised at 4:30am, but the fire brigade were already tackling a fire in Canton so they did not arrive for another 40 minutes. The flames were eventually extinguished at 8:30am, but by this point the venue had perished forever, making ‘Scamps of London’ on December 11 the theatre’s final performance.



Today the only evidence that remains is this blue plaque on the Queen Street facade of the Parc Hotel.

Empire Theatre, Queen Street



First opened as Levino’s Music Hall in 1887, it was taken over by Oswald Stoll and re-branded the Empire Theatre in 1889. Much like the nearby Theatre Royal it was ravaged by fire in October 1899 and had to be demolished. Renowned theatre architect Frank Matcham was commissioned to design a replacement, and in September 1900 the new 1,726-seat Empire Palace Theatre opened its doors.

In a bid to keep itself fresh, the building was repeatedly extended, adapted and underwent a number of name changes. Major building work was undertaken in 1915 to increase the seating capacity from 1,726 to 2,820. It was converted to cinema use in 1931 following a takeover by the Gaumont Corporation and in August 1933 a ‘Compton 3Manual/10Ranks’ theatre organ was installed. That same year it was renamed the Cine-Variety Theatre, but by 1954 it became known as the Gaumont Cardiff.

The cinema was closed by owners Rank Organization in December 1961 due to falling visitor numbers in all three of its Cardiff theatres. They also owned the Capitol Theatre and one other. Performances were moved to the Capitol Theatre and the Empire was demolished in 1962.

Olympia Cardiff, Queen Street

Entrepreneur Solomon Andrews, one of the driving forces behind the Victorian regeneration of Cardiff, is most well-known for the Cardiff Market building and the (now removed) tram network around the city. One of his lesser known ventures were the Andrews Buildings on Queen Street, built in early 1899 it housed office premises on the upper levels and leisure and retail units on the ground floor. The building was also home to Andrews Hall, a concert hall which was later converted for use, in the more-profitable, theatre business.

The theatre was leased to the Olympia group in 1912 who converted it for cinema use and renamed it the Olympia Cardiff. By 1936 the lease had changed hands to Associated British Cinemas and after undergoing considerable modernisation was renamed ABC Cardiff. In 1972 the Andrews family severed all ties with the theatre and sold full control of the building to ABC, 4 years later its capacity was tripled and it was renamed ABC Queen Street. Ownership of the cinema changed hands several times in the 20 years that followed; in 1986 it was renamed the Cannon, it became the MGM in 1991 before returning to the ABC name in 1996.

In June 1999, faced with the prospect of having to compete with the city’s two new multiplexes, the cinema closed its doors for the final time. The auditorium was demolished in 2003 as part of a major regeneration project on the north side of Queen Street. The building facade remains today and is home to clothing chain River Island.



The Olympia in 1954, and how it looks today as a clothes store.



RUMOUR: It is believed that the hall was used in early part of the 20th century for roller skating. It’s rumoured that shortly before demolition in 2003 a giant painting of a female skater was uncovered on the rear wall of the stage. If you have any further information on this, or perhaps a picture, please get in touch.

Cardiff Odeon, Queen Street

Opened in 1911 as the New Imperial Cinema, it was described by locals as:

“the coolest in winter and the coziest in spring”

It was taken over by Odeon Theatres in 1935 and reopened a year later following extensive reconstruction work to increase its capacity to 1,135 in the stalls and 528 in the circle. The cinema remained largely unaltered until 1980 when the stalls and circle area were merged.

The cinema, which boasted the largest cinema screen in Cardiff at the time, continued to operate despite the opening of the nearby Odeon multiplex - in fact the Odeon corporation were so committed to the cinema that they spent £300,000 on a face lift in 1994. The face lift didn’t do enough to boost its fortunes though and in May 2000 it had to accept defeat to the multiplex and close its doors for the last time. Its closure occurred just 11 months after the neighbouring ABC had also closed their doors amidst increased competition.

View photos of the Queen Street Odeon on stagedoor’s photostream on Flickr

Capitol Theatre, Queen Street

The Capitol Theatre opened to an invitation-only crowd on Christmas Eve 1921. It boasted an impressive 3,000 capacity which could have been considerably more if the developers had not run into financial difficulties during construction. It had an underground ballroom (later the Victor Sylvester Dancing School) and three restaurants, one of which had its own orchestra.

“The Cap”, as it was affectionately known, having been converted for cinema use, continued to show silent movies for a long period after all other cinemas in the city had opted to start showing “talkies”. Live music was also very popular, with the venue regularly hosting acts such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones & Tom Jones. American rock band Lynard Skynard’s November performance at the venue during their 1975 European Tour was recorded for a live album; the album entitled ’Live At The Cardiff Capitol Theater’ was released in March 2009.

It was owned by a private company, Tilney’s, and was run by them until it was leased to Paramount in 1931 and then the Odeon Group in 1941. The Rank Organization purchased the building in April 1964, but by 1976 they had signalled their intention to close the theatre and turn it into a bingo hall. Rank’s plan would have transformed the building into Europe’s largest bingo hall, though thankfully this was rejected by Cardiff Council due to massive public outrage. Within two years though the cinema had closed its doors, making the X-rated double header of ’Yellow Emmanuelle’ and ’The Street Killers’ on 21 January 1978 the cinema’s final shows.

The Capitol was demolished in February 1983 (along with the neighbouring Dutch Cafe and Cory Memorial Hall) to make way for the aptly named Capitol Centre, a multi-purpose leisure & retail complex which included a brand new multiplex cinema.

Capitol Odeon, Station Terrace

The city’s first multiplex opened in August 1991 as part of the Capitol Centre, with 5 screens able to seat a total of more than 1,200 people (capacities were 435, 261, 223, 186 and 161).

1997 would signal the beginning of the end for the Odeon, takings began to decrease in October following the opening of the 12-screen UCI cinemas in Cardiff Bay. In July 2001 the final nail was knocked into the coffin when the 15-screen UGC cinema opened on nearby Mary Ann Street. Within a month the Odeon had been forced to accepted defeat, it closed the doors for the last time on 21 August - a mere 10 years after first opening.

Despite a number of major regeneration projects in Cardiff city centre in the 10 years since its closure, this cinema remains disused and its interior apparently perfectly preserved.

Best of the rest

The first purpose-built cinema in Cardiff was the Queen’s Cinema on Queen Street which opened in July 1911 (headline photo). Its ownership changed hands to Savoy Cinemas in 1925 before ABC purchased Savoy and took over the running of the cinema. At the time ABC already operated several other more popular cinemas in the city, most notably the nearby Olympia. ABC’s ownership led to a steady decline, in the 1930s it was showing the same films as the Pavilion and by the 1950s it was primarily showing re-runs. ABC closed down the Queen’s in October 1955 and within 3 years it had been demolished to make way for retail units (today housing Game and Specsavers).

Also on Queen Street, a couple of doors from the Empire stood the Electric Theatre. Originally opened in 1909, the cinema had a frontage on to Queen Street which led back to a “temporary” structure behind (the building was only given planning permission for 5 years). The theatre had closed by 1921 and the site was occupied by a car salesroom, it was later demolished to make way for Dominion’s Arcade.

Further reading and references:

Ribbon of Dreams: Remembering Cardiff’s Cinemas - Gary Wharton 1998

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/columnists/2011/06/09/brian-lee-theatres-of-bygone-days-where-music-stars-shone-91466-28843698/

http://www.glamro.gov.uk/check/Building%20of%20a%20Capital%202/A_Leisure.html

The Cinema Treasures website has proved an invaluable resource for this article and it’s well worth a visit if you would like to read any more about these, or in fact any other Theatre.

http://www.cinematreasures.org/

A number of photos linked have come from the Flickr Photostream of the user 'Stagedoor’ aka Ian Gundy

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stagedoor/