History

Located opposite the station, this was originally the new assembly rooms, designed by local architect Arthur Smith and opened in May 1886 at the cost of £4,500. It was used for a variety of purposes, including stage shows, dancing, roller-skating, badminton and community functions. There was a main hall and a minor upstairs hall.



The most prominent feature of the building was an octagonal lantern tower, which at one time housed a revolving light, operated by a boy pedalling a bicycle-type mechanism that advertised its presence miles around.



Films were first presented in 1887 when David Devant brought his animatograph to Bognor on 14-16 December. Reputedly, such was the impact of the fire brigade call that it had patrons ducking for cover beneath the chairs in front of them for fear that the galloping horses would descend from the screen and crash down amongst them.



The Poole brothers were among the regular touring entertainers that used the assembly rooms and they were among the first to bring films to Bognor as part of their all-round variety programme.



Patrons were already familiar with the Poole brother’s myriorama, presenting panoramic pictures on the screen 27ft long and nearly 14ft high, which was drawn across the stage on rollers. On this were shown with running commentary, famous place, battle scenes, and trains leaving station and ships at sea. In September 1901 the Poole brothers introduced their myriograph, displaying most amusing up-to-date cinematography pictures.



Concern was being expressed as early as 1907 over safety while films were being shown but it was not until 1911 that major improvements were made as carried out by the proprietors, W.H. London and son.



The main problem with the screen was bad acoustics, which was remedied by lowing the ceiling and a special room constructed for the projection equipment outside the main hall with an external entrance. This gave rise to speculation that the hall was to be let as a permanent cinema.



In 1911 the building was renamed the queens hall in order to commemorate the coronation of George V and Queen Mary. The register shows that the hall was 86ft long by 45ft wide and capable of seating 700 people.



During the first World War the queens hall was used as a barracks and was occupied by the services, but afterwards it was taken over by a company called the Picturedrome (Bognor) Ltd, which was headed by Eastbourne architect and business man Peter D Stonham and backed by two local businessmen, builder and bathing machine owner Frederick Jenkins and chemist c.t. Cooper.



It was in February 1919 that Mr Stonham submitted his plans to convert the queen’s hall into a full time cinema to be called the Picturedrome. The district council approved the plans on 11 April and the premises re-opened on Thursday 5 June 1919 as the Picturedrome.



Outside there was a glass canopy supported by columns with elaborate grillwork around the entrance with the new name of the cinema set on the front in coloured glass lettering against a sunburst pattern.



The position of the projection box and the screen were reversed. The former operators box dating from 1911 was now concealed behind a new picture board (or screen) and became the orchestra room with a new opening knocked into the back wall, while the orchestra pit with a curved rail in front was built to accommodate the pianist who accompanied the silent films.



A new side entrance, with its own pay box, was created in the front left-hand corner of the auditorium. The main entrance to the auditorium was now located halfway down the left-hand side, leading straight from the foyer.



The flat floor was raised in a gradual upward slope in the half furthest from the screen.



Ventilation was improved and 660 comfortable seats in blue were fixed into place on the single floor (there was no balcony).



Four boxes were introduced at the rear of the auditorium, two in each corner, on either side of the old proscenium arch, which was retained. A passage leading off to the right from the foyer took patrons to the back of the auditorium for the boxes, which were entered from the rear and to the back rows of seating which extended onto the old stage area between the boxes.



A new projection box was built inside the original arch above the boxes and the rear seats. A tea room was created directly behind the auditorium on the ground floor, below the secondary of ‘minor’ hall, which was at first floor level, separated from the new projection box by a thick wall. This hall was hired out for various functions including whist drives and dances.



James Fleming, benefactor of the town’s new War Memorial Hospital, to which the day’s takings were donated, performed the re-opening ceremony. The first programme included the British feature Boundary House, starring Alma Taylor and Gerald Ames, plus footage of the Victory Derby just run at Epsom and the Pate Gazette. The musical accompaniment came from the Picturedrome Orchestra, directed by Miss Beatrice Travers.



Admission prices were 5d. 9d. 3d and 1s. 10d with children half price at the matinees. There were continuous performances daily from 3pm to 10.30pm.



A Sunday licence was opposed in a petition signed by 1,046 local residents, claming that Sunday performances were ‘very injurious to the religious life of the community’. However, a seven day licence was granted and the local police later welcomed the decision as, in their experience, Sunday films had the effect of taking young people off the streets, who would otherwise be at a dead end, and ………”a source of annoyance”.



The manager from the opening to 1923 was John Douglas Geils, who learned about the cinema business in Winnipeg, Canada and who had seen wartime service with the Canadian Expeditionary Force. He was the son in law of Frederick Jenkins and his daughter, Barbara Ovstedal relates that he was dissuaded from returning to Canada with his new bride by the offer of the manager’s job at Bognor Regis.



She remembers him standing in white tie and tails welcoming patrons to the new picture house. He had a magnificent baritone voice and would sing for the audience during the intervals.



In a letter written by John Geils shortly after the opening and retained by his daughter, he hints at the competition with the pier for booking feature films. The pier had secured a number of Charlie Chaplin films but he remained optimistic, having managed to obtain a few Chaplin subjects himself as well as films starring Mary Pickford and Margarita Fischer.



Rowdyism sometimes erupted in the cheaper seats but Geils summarily ejected troublemakers onto the street. Sadly, he was to die at an early age of 32 in 1925.



By 1922 the problem of competition with the Pier Theatre had been resolved by the Picturedrome coming under the same ownership, having been taken over by M.W Shanly and A.Carter through the Bognor Pier Company. With the lower price range and fewer seats, the Picturedrome was secondary to the Pier Theatre.



By 1930, both the Picturedrome and the Pier cinema had been equipped with Western Electric sound and were operating with the same ticket prices. Mrs Beatrice Louisa Young was the Picturedrome's well-known manageress of this period, having started at the Picturedrome in 1919 as a cashier and been placed in charge a few years later. She gave up her job in 1938 through ill health. After she died in 1969, it was recalled in the Bognor Post (17th October 1970) that she would cycle down London Road with the cinema takings in a shopping bag and the policeman on point duty would halt the traffic for her. On her return, the fishmonger and butcher would be waiting with her order and put her shopping bag as she passed.



Shortly after the Second World War, control of the picturedrome passed from the Bognor Pier Co to the small Manchester based Buxton Theatre Circuit (which also ran the venues on the pier) but around 1949 a Mrs S Leigh leased it.



On the night of Tuesday 27^th April 1954 a fire seriously damaged the interior of the Picturedrome and it remained closed for more than four months. This was the era of the new wide screen and it was decided to widen the proscenium arch to take a large Cinemascope screen. At 30ft across, it was almost double the width of the old screen. The auditorium was completely redecorated and refurbished with 700 new seats and new carpets. It is likely that the braces, which still support the ceiling, were introduced at this time.



Although the cinema lost  a valuable holiday seasons takings, it was able to boast of the earliest Cinemascope installation in the area. There was a gala re-opening by the chairman of Bognor Regis U.D.C on Tuesday 14^th September 1954 with the first British made Cinemascope feature, MGMs Knights of the Round Table, which played for nine days, followed by a weeks run of ‘Beneath the Twelve Mile Reef’ (evenings) and ‘Flight of the White Heron’ (royal documentary, afternoons) both Cinemascope productions from 20^th Century Fox which had launched the new wide screen system. This was more than two months ahead of Cinemascope arriving in Chichester and more than three months before it appeared at the Bognor Odeon.





The Picturedrome competed with the Theatre Royal for all the films not committed to the Odeon and generally gained the better attractions.



In 1959 the Picturedrome was taken over by Drummer Theatres (Bognor Regis) Ltd, whose managing director Basil Fortesque had been behind the opening of Luxor Lancing. Unfortunately ill health compelled him to sell the property and in April 1962 it passed into the hands of John Robertson, a cinema owner from Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire.



The cinema now had 553 seats. Bingo was established in the small hall upstairs, which had been used for whilst drives and dances in the earlier years. When the cinema celebrated its jubilee in June 1969, telegrams of good wishes were received from two British luminaries of the silent screen, Alma Taylor, star of the opening the opening film and Chrissie White, whose film ‘Toward the Light’ had been shown at the Picturedrome later in its opening year.



John Robertson died in 1975 and the lease was inherited by his son James who ran it for several years from his home in Devon, together with three other cinemas in Bideford, Barnstaple, and Launceston. By 1980, down to 522 seats the Picturedrome was the only full-time cinema left in Bognor Regis.



In 1983, Robertson sold the Picturedrome (now seating 472) for more than £60,000 to the Cannon Classic circuit, which took over on 1^st July 1983. The cinema continued to be known as the Picturedrome for a while before being renamed classic from Thursday 25^th August 1983.



The new owners modernised the cinema and added a second screen in place of bingo in the upstairs hall. Attractively designed with a new false ceiling meeting arches on the side of the walls, the 96 seat classic two made its debut on Friday 17^th August 1984 with the move over of Star Trek 2 from the main auditorium, which opened Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.



Then the cinemas were renamed Cannon from Friday 6^th December 1985. There were 391 seats in the original auditorium and 99 in the upstairs addition. The tower which had been boarded up, had been restored, Dolby stereo had been installed and plans to reopen the long closed boxes at the rear of the auditorium, with one box to each side seating 4 people.



The cannon name was displayed in an illuminated sign on the side of the wall, while the old Picturedrome name is pleasingly still to be found set in coloured glass on the front of the canopy over the entrance.



The cinema was acquired by Virgin, along with the rest of Cannon/MGM circuit. However on the 2^nd May 1996 it was sold to ABC Cinemas and on the 14^th June was renamed ABC, but six months later the cinema changed hands once more.



In November 1996 the cinema returned to its original name of Picturedrome Theatres Ltd and was to join a chain of privately owned Picturedrome cinemas.



New seating was installed in both screens, along with new carpets throughout the whole building.



Screen One now seats 363, with both theatre boxes reopened with 4 club seats in each box, screen Two now seats 100 people.



Dolby Digital sound was installed in Screen One with each of the private boxes having their own personal speakers. Dolby Stereo was installed in Screen Two and was later updated to Dolby Surround sound, which is still in place to date.



On the 9^th April 2003 the cinema changed hands once more to REELTIME CINEMAS LTD.



Reeltime Cinemas Ltd is a Kent based company, they are an independent cinema chain. The managing director is Mr Mike Vickers.

Mr Vickers has run cinemas for many years now and is well known and respected within the cinema industry and has been heavily involved with the Cinema Exhibitors Association. Mr Vickers is also the treasurer of “Media Salles” which is a European funded working group for the promotion of European cinema.



On April 20^th 2007, the cinema again changed hands. We are now The Picturedrome Electric Theatre Company Ltd. We are also now twinned with The Alexandra Theatre.