Palace Theatre
156 High Street,
Swansea,
SA1 1NE
156 High Street,
Swansea,
SA1 1NE
2 people
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In a very poor state a year later
PALACE THEATRE
Yet another Swansea building that is surrounded by barricades to save passersby from falling bricks!
The Albert Hall AND the Elysium are both surrounded by barricades.
What is Swansea doing to protect these buildings.
OK, the Elysium is past caring for, but the Albert Hall. especially, is there waiting to be made into what could possibly be a glorious concert hall for Swansea and surrounding area.
I started in stage lighting at the Palace Theatre around 1960 as a member of Swansea Little Theatre. The theatre had be re equipped a few years earlier by Maudie Edwards who intended to run rep there,it failed. There was a Strand Sunset switchboard in the flys stage right,which controled three colour footlights and two batterns, 3 dips stage left and right and about 6 spots on No1 bar. The projection room was used for the ice cream fridge but still had two sets of steel pipes set in the floor with bolts at the top to take the 3 legs of the projectors. There was a managers flat at the back of the gallery, used for our wardrobe. An original gas sun burner was still in the roof space to ventilate the hall. A very large motor generator set was in a room at ground floor level at the rear which must have powered the projector arcs. A very scary basement under the building was used to store flats and props, some said it had been used as a morgue during the blitz on Swansea in the 1940,s. The ground floor was a pub not shops, and was flooded once by the drenchers being set off in the dark rather than the safety curtain on the way out of the building one night and they ran all night!! Lots more I could tell about Swansea Little Theatre at the Palace, we moved out around 1962/3 when lease ran out and owners wanted to demolish the building. I understand its up for sale again 2/2008.
Richard Havard.
lostmemory; Sorry not available on DVD. It was released here in the UK on VHS tape back in 1992 by Warner who first released it in UK cinemas in 1962 (ABC release in Associated British Cinemas when I first saw it). It’s a good film, I watched it again, on TV here in London, a few months ago. It’s in b&w though.
Exterior photo of the Palace from 1989 here:–
View link
The ‘Miss B. Elmore’ billed on the poster pictured above was actually Belle Elmore, a music hall artiste and wife of Dr. Crippen, who murdered her in 1910.
A small exterior photograph of the Palace Theatre here:
http://www.pubsgalore.co.uk/pubs/56635/