Others (Noverre)

The Noverre 1950 - 1992

The Noverre was a converted Victorian ballroom in the beautiful Assembly House Building in Theatre Street, and was the smallest cinema in Norwich with only 272 seats, but none the less interesting for that. It opened in 1950 with the express purpose of showing films not otherwise available in the city, and for many years was the obvious venue for the more refined cinema goer, and for the discerning film enthusiast. It would show classic movies from the past, and some modern foreign releases that would not be picked up by either the circuits or the independents. For many years an adjacent room in the building was used on occasion by the Norwich Film Society for showing of vintage movies, which I visited from time to time, most memorably one night in 1966 when I went to see “The General”, and we learned just before the showing that Buster Keaton had died that day. It turned the showing into a memorial to the great man, and gave the always enjoyable classic, a poignant quality that couldn’t have been achieved at any other time. 

The cinema itself was small and select, much like some of the London cinema clubs of the time that I used to visit, with a loyal and indulgent cliental. It attracted a number of people, including many old ladies, who would go the same day every week, whatever film was showing. It was a practise which led to the occasional bizarre scene, like the time I sat behind a group of elderly ladies on their weekly night out at the Noverre, watching a Yugoslavian art movie called “W.R. Mysteries of the Organism”, while on screen a young lady was inducing an erection from a famous magazine editor, and then encasing the result in plaster, to make a model to join her other efforts, on a shelf containing phalluses labelled variously “Richard Nixon”, “Kennedy” etc. The old ladies never stirred or spoke, but watched intently, as they had the week before at “The Importance Of Being Ernest”, and would next week at the “Seven Samurai”. They took it all in their stride, although an exception was made for too much bad language; in later days a showing of “Goodfellas” provoked some criticism; but generally speaking, if it was good enough for The Noverre, it was good enough for them, and in doing so they followed an old tradition of loyal, indiscriminate cinema going, which had been the pattern until the fifties.

The cinema was tastefully decorated, with an unusual arrangement of a slab of seats with plenty of leg room taking most of the floor space, and a row of single seats either side. The audience came in through doors at the front of the auditiorium, one on either side of the screen. This could lead to some annoying moments, as when the staff decided on a cup of tea when the box office had been cashed up, and an usherette would appear at the side of the screen, soon after the film started, kettle in hand, tramp up the aisle to fill up at the back, then thunder her way down again. There was one distinct performance every evening, and they would usually cash up the box office before the performance started, which caused me some difficulties, as I always like to arrive just before the film starts, even though there were no adverts. It was a practise they discouraged, and I was refused entrance a couple of times. There were no trailers at The Noverre, just a hand painted glass slide projected on the screen, complete with spelling mistakes, giving the title of next weeks film, and no ice creams: the film was very much the thing at that discreet, but austere establishment, and their little idiosyncrasies were very much a part of the charm.

The projection facilities were good, especially when my old friend Peter Upton was in charge: he was a 9.5mm enthusiast from the thirties, and knew all about correct ratios, and the necessary masking to achieve the right result. Other projectionists were not so dedicated though, and a friend of mine was once startled to hear the faint sound of Bruce Forsythe’s “Good game, good game” overlaying the soundtrack of the film. He went round to the projection box, and through the glass panel in the door, saw the projectionist watching “The Generation Game” on TV, oblivious to the film, which was running automatically. He decided to leave him to it, and moved seats to a position further away from the thin back wall, which was allowing Bruce to compete with the film. Sound was always a problem at the Noverre, with a poor system installed that produced a thin sound, which was especially inimical to musicals; I remember seeing “Guys And Dolls” there, and Joseph Losey's "Don Giovanni" neither of which really worked without a quality sound system.

During the sixties the BFI sponsored Norfolk and Norwich Film Theatre came to Norwich, with the Noverre the obvious venue, and for twelve years it ran their programmes one week in four. It showed an eclectic mix of established classics and new foreign films, which, combined with its normal programming, and the Film Society next door, made this elegant Georgian building, set back unobtrusively from the road, behind wrought iron gates, a mecca for film enthusiasts, and with a cutting edge programme of cinema that only London could rival. We also had for awhile in the seventies an offshoot of the Norfolk and Norwich Film Theatre at the UEA, with occasional programming at Lecture Theatre One to add to the already overflowing abundance of quality, and quirky, cinema-going that Norwich had to offer. I visited the Assembly rooms obsessively during this period, until in 1978 a dedicated art cinema opened in the remodelled Stuart and Suckling Halls in St Andrews Street , and that in turn became my new second home for a number of years. I still visited the Noverre from time to time, as it settled back into servicing its loyal audience for a number of years, before flagging attendances led to its closure in 1992. The last showing was packed of course, with nostalgia buffs, not appreciating I suspect, that if they had turned out in such numbers on a regular basis, the cinema would never have had to close. For such an odd and unique little cinema, it survived a remarkably long time, especially during a period when cinemas were generally in decline, probably because it appealed to a niche market that was less buffeted by prevailing commercial considerations.

Theatre Royal 1956 - 1968

The Theatre Royal stands beside the Assembly Rooms in Theatre Street, a position it has occupied in one form or another for nearly 300 years; and has been called the Theatre Royal for nearly 250 of those years. Over the years it has hosted shows featuring all the great names of the theatre from Sarah Kemble, Edmund Kean, Junious Booth, the great American actor, the father of Lincoln's assassin, William Charles Macready, Paganini, Tom Thumb, courtesy of P.T. Barnum, and Blondin. In the present day, all the modern theatrical establishment has appeared, along with numerous one-off music nights. 

One particular star had been reputed to have appeared, and I was always intrigued by the thought, but could never find confirmation, until I did a live radio show on Radio Norfolk and asked if anybody had any memories of Bela Lugosi in Norwich. A listener phoned in to say that Bela Lugosi certainly did appear in Norwich, because he had been to the Theatre Royal to see him in a production of "Dracula" in 1951. I had always known this to be the case because I had once bought in the shop, an old autograph book with a number of signatures, one of which mentioned the Theatre Royal, and on the last page, in bold red ink, was the signature of Bela Lugosi. I spoke to someone who had been to the stage door after the show to get Lugosi’s autograph, which he had gladly provided, taking the book from the man, and signing with a flourish as he pronounced “I sign this in my own blood”.

Lugosi's career was in the doldrums by 1951, and he undertook a six month tour of England with a production of "Dracula" to try and revive his fortunes, but with very mixed results. The tour is generally regarded as a failure, although as the production played over 200 performances in 22 cities, some students of Lugosi question this judgement, even to the extent of a book being written a few years ago entirely dedicated to this little documented tour. Some 60 years on, it's difficult to know the truth, although the "Evening News" gave it a good review, saying that Lugosi "conveys a sensation of evil, without any apparent effort", but my caller on Radio Norfolk had an illuminating story to tell. He remembers the show, which ended with Lugosi disappearing in a cloud of smoke, only to reappear after the curtains had closed to tell the audience: "Remember, there are such things as Vampires". The show ran during the last week in July, and in the middle of the run, Bela Lugosi was invited to perform the opening of Hellesdon School playing fields, an extraordinarily prosaic event for a screen legend, but Lugosi was very obliging, even though he was 68 years old, not in the best of health, and doing six shows a week. My caller arrived at the fields at the appointed time, expecting crowds to be there, only to find that Lugosi had arrived with some council officials, but only a handful of members of the public had turned up. It was sad to see the great man cutting a very lonely figure in this vast field; one of the legends of the cinema brought low by public indifference. My caller said he went and spoke to him, and found him very friendly and polite, and even received a signed photo in the post some days later. Lugosi's career was not revived by the tour, he never played Dracula again, and the rest of his life was a sad decline.

My abiding memories of the Theatre Royal are of great nights with musical legends, performing at the peak of their fame. In 1956 I went to see Lonnie Donegan at his electrifying best, pounding out some frenzied rock and roll as only he could. I watched awestruck from the balcony as the energy and excitement generated by Lonnie and his band took the audience by storm; this was something nobody had seen or heard before, and presaged the coming music revolution. It was a few years later, when rock and roll had come, and nearly gone, that I saw Jerry Lee Lewis on the same stage produce another performance of unbridled physical excitement and power, that can only be guessed at from old film footage. I saw others at this time in the early sixties, like Gene Vincent, Johnny Kidd and Brenda Lee, all at their peak on the stage at the Theatre Royal, performing with a live audience that brought out the best in them. We must all be grateful that the theatre gave us the opportunity, which it continues to the present day, but it was a close run thing for a few years from the mid fifties to the mid sixties. 

In 1956 the Theatre Royal was leased to the Essoldo circuit and for ten years operated mainly as a cinema showing an eclectic mix of exploitation low budget films, including a number of the nudist features then pushing the censorship boundaries, some revivals of classic movies, and some quality first run movies after it gained access to all Twentieth Century Fox films, when The Norvic lost the contract. It was very popular with us for quite awhile with its more off-beat and slightly racy programming, especially when, in 1957, it showed "Love Me Tender", the first time Elvis had been seen in the city, and the first movie to generate dancing in the aisles, long before the so-called riots later in the year with "Rock Around The Clock". It opened on Sunday February 3rd with a packed house, but the reaction was somewhat muted, and there were even some murmurs of derision at Elvis' death scene. The problem was that this wasn't the Presley we had come to see; instead of the King of Rock and Roll, we had a rather slow, black and white western, with a few fast country numbers rather awkwardly stitched into the plot. It had a second run on the Regal shortly after, and fared a bit better, with a bit more clapping and audience reaction, and some rather self conscious dancing in the aisles, but we would have to wait some months before we could see the real Presley, as I describe in the section on the Haymarket.

As well as the films, we also regarded the Theatre Royal as a bit of a social gathering place, due to its generally more laid back atmosphere, and would often walk around the auditorium socialising, although this could lead to the occasional confrontation ...... story from 1958 diary ....

The Essoldo ran the Theatre quite well for a number of years, and in 1959 had the first stereophonic sound system installed for "South Pacific", and it continued to attract decent audiences until the mid sixties, when all cinemas found the going increasingly tough. By 1965 the company decided to pull out of the film business, and applied to the council to have the Theatre turned into a Bingo Hall. This mad idea was so outrageous that even Norwich City Council were horrified, and were provoked into a decision that actually saved a piece of Norwich heritage, in distinction to the wholesale vandalism it inflicted for the rest of the decade. Legal discussions went on for awhile, and finally in 1967 the Council bought the Theatre for £90,000. It struggled for a time to find a real identity, but had some very successful plays and shows, although still with films interspersed, and I remember seeing films there until my last visit in July 1968 to see "In Cold Blood". When Dick Condon arrived in 1972 as manager, the theatre began to revive, and his twenty year tenure laid the foundations for the thriving enterprise it is today. My memories of the Theatre Royal over a period of more than fifty years are of some magnificent live shows, plays and music, but also of some great film nights in what was at times, one of the most interesting cinemas in the city. 

The Hippodrome 1931 - 1937  1959 - 1960

The Hippodrome stood in St Giles Street and was opened in 1903 as “The Norwich Opera House” , becoming “The Grand Opera House”, for a short time, before settling on its familiar name of The Hippodrome. It had a beautifully ornate frontage with a semi circular courtyard, set back from the road, and inside it was a monument to the great music hall tradition, of which it was so much a part. Steeply rising tiers of seating, with plush boxes, and decorative plaster friezes and cupids, looking down from a vaulted ceiling. It could seat 1100 people and must have been a spectacular experience for the first few decades of its existence. In the early years of its existence it showed short films "if time permits"; but as a Music Hall, It would have played host to all the big names of its era, even a then unknown Archie Leach, before he went to America and became Cary Grant. For some reason in 1930 it converted to film, and for about seven years was quite an important cinema. By the post war period however, after Blitz damage rebuilding, it had reverted to Variety, even as the music hall tradition was on the wane. I remember it first of all for its Christmas pantomimes, when my mother and I would queue outside with mounting excitement, for me at least, until we could take our place in the balcony for one of the great nights of the year. At the start of the fifties it could still attract performers of the quality of Laurel and Hardy, and The Goons, but it soon settled into a decidedly niche market and established a reputation for risqué nude shows from the likes of Paul Raymond, interspersed with musical acts of a slightly lower status that those on the Theatre Royal or Carlton. On one memorable night in February 1957 the act was “Art Baxter and his Rock and Roll Sinners”, a second tier act cashing in on the Rock and Roll craze that was becoming ever more dominant. He was a raucous, over-amplified singer, with a frenetic stage act that had caused excitement all week, and by the Friday night the audience were so stirred up, that towards the end of the show , they left their seats and stormed the stage, and began jiving with the band. The management put up with this infringement for a short time, but then decided it had to stop. The situation was so serious that they decided on the nuclear option: they raised the house lights and began playing the National Anthem! It did the trick, and the music stopped, as did the jiving, and the crowds filed out of the still shaking theatre , the revolution obviously not quite ready. This was the same week that “Love Me Tender” showed at the Theatre Royal, and perhaps more significantly, two days before the mini riot at the last night of the Theatre De Luxe. The times were changing in 1957, and these incidents were the straws in the wind, for those who could see.

Apart from pantomimes, I didn't have much to do with the Hippodrome until 1959, when it turned itself back into a cinema for a short while. As I mentioned in the section on the Regal, when that cinema closed in the first half of 1959, Mr Hymenson the manager still had ambitions to run cinemas, and somehow acquired the managers position at the Hippodrome when, in December 1959, it had one last fling as a cinema. It ran movies from the end of 1959 until the middle of 1960, and was often a decidedly eccentric experience. The cinema itself was still the wonderfully ornate Edwardian Music Hall, but with its large spaces never even half full; and the films were a superb selection of old classics, mixed in with some B-movie dross. In the few months it existed I saw "From Here To Eternity", "Gone With The Wind" and "East Of Eden" among much lesser fare, and Hymie, always the hands-on manager, and who was always visible around the place, worked hard to make his vision of a quality cinema work in impossibly difficult times, but to no avail. His projectionist was a handicap, and the first time I visited, to see "The Brain From Planet Arous" the film started with the wrong reel, and amid derisory catcalls from the audience, the performance was halted, and the reels hurriedly sorted out, and reorganised before we could see the film. On another occasion we were watching the film when it juddered to a halt, and we watched in delight as the first small spot of burning celluloid appeared in the middle of the screen, and then spread quickly in a psychedelic squirm of colours as the film melted, magnified a hundred times. It was a show that totally overshadowed the rest of the film when it was finally re-spliced, and restarted, and one of the incidental joys of cinema going, reflecting what was probably the norm fifty five years before, in the days of the Bioscope, which is what the Hippodrome called itself in 1905. So the circle was complete, and half a century of entertainment, from the often sublime, to the occasionally ridiculous, came to an end in July 1960. Hymie had to admit defeat, and gave up his dream of cinema, that he had worked so hard at for so many years. Along the way he, and other traditional managers, gave us unforgettable pleasures, that filled our lives and shaped our imaginations, and we should honour these unsung heroes before they pass from memory.