Tyneside Cinema

Tyneside Cinema

This cinema was opened as the News Theatre in 1937 to designs by George Bell of the Newcastle practice Dixon and Bell. It is constructed in brick and steel frame, clad in white glazed tiles. The building is concealed behind a parade of shops, also designed by Bell, which incorporates the original entrance. Access is now from the side through glazed doors into a small entrance foyer.

The foyer features elaborate fibrous plaster Art Deco mouldings on the ceiling, cornices and pilasters surrounding the stairwell. The staircase balustrades are worked in the same style. This decorative treatment continues to the second floor, with balustrades extending to the third floor. Triple-shouldered arches span the entrances to the stairs and stairwell apertures.

The main auditorium is arranged as a rectangular double-height space with stalls in a semi-basement and a balcony approached from the first floor. The stalls are reached by stairs from the foyer. The straight balcony front features acoustic fluted decoration and extends as legs to meet the proscenium wall. The proscenium itself displays superimposed mouldings with rounded profiles interrupted by three relief bands decorated with rosettes. The side splays are embellished with vertical Art Deco panels of pierced fibrous plaster standing on plinths with bands of scrolling acanthus containing rosettes. Below these are dwarf balconies with metal balustrades designed as interlaced circles, which may originally have been intended as giant jardinieres for plants. The walls feature horizontal banding. A square lighting cove occupies the main ceiling, with fibrous plaster panels in the subsidiary ceilings at the sides. Two columns in the rear balcony carry dish uplighter sconces ultimately derived from the Grosses Schauspielhaus in Berlin of 1919 by Hans Poelzig. The back wall of the balcony is inset with sound absorbent panels and three fibrous plaster panels in the soffit.

A cinema cafe occupies the second floor above the auditorium, featuring Art Deco pilasters and an entrance corridor with sumptuous cornice and ceiling decoration. A second auditorium was created in the roof space above the cafe, without decorative features of note.

The News Theatre was a particular type of cinema popular in the late 1930s, showing newsreels, topical interest films and cartoons, fulfilling an invaluable function in disseminating information before television. These small halls became a feature of major city centres and principal railway stations. Few survive in any form. This is the finest surviving purpose-built newsreel cinema in Britain, incorporating a rare example of a fine cinema cafe.