Theatre Royal
49 Peter Street,
Manchester,
M2 3NQ
49 Peter Street,
Manchester,
M2 3NQ
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Grand opening ad posted.
When it was converted to be ‘The Theatre Royal Cinerama’ the Cinerama projection screen, rather than being a continuous surface like most screens, was made of hundreds of individual vertical strips of standard, high reflectivity screen material, each about 22mm wide, with each strip angled to face the audience. This was so as to prevent light scattered from one end of the deeply curved screen from reflecting across and washing out the image on the opposite end. Sadly, this gave the picture a striated appearance. The show also featured a, pre-Dolby, seven-track, directional, surround-sound system, such that sounds always appeared to be coming from their intended source.
The original system involved shooting with three 25mm synchronized cameras sharing a single shutter. This process was later abandoned in favor of a system using a single, anamorphic lens camera and 70mm film. The three cameras were mounted as one unit, set at 48 degrees to each other. The single rotating shutter, in front of the three lenses, assured simultaneous exposure on each of the films. The three angled cameras photographed an image that was not only three times as wide as a standard film but covered 146 degrees of arc, close to the human field of vision, including peripheral. The image was photographed six sprocket holes high, rather than the usual four used in conventional 35 mm processes. The picture was also photographed and projected at 26 frames per second rather than the usual 24, for better persistence overlap.
Cinerama film was originally projected from three separate projection boxes, arranged in the same crisscross pattern as the cameras. There was a visible overlap of the screen images, which was somewhat distracting. Any slight projection vibration resulted in a noticable loss of convergence. The single, anamorphic, 70mm system addressed all the major problems, and the two extra projection boxes were removed. At The Theatre Royal Cinerama I got to see ‘How The West Was Won’ in both systems. They were both equally impressive, but not enough to keep me going back. The main feature was usually preceded by the demonstration film ‘This is Cinerama.’
Amazing how owners can let their grand and glorious buildings go to that sad sorry state in the pics above.
Better days lie ahead for this gem.
Two 1988 shots here when the building was in a poor state as the Buckingham Bingo Club:–
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stagedoor/4513528783/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stagedoor/4513528501/
Great news!
The Library THeatre Company, one of the countries top theatre company’s is to make the Theatre Royal its new home.
The company will move out of its current home at Manchester Library ad have the Theatre Royal brought up to the standards of a modern producing theatre.
Ok thanks. Will do. in the meantime there is an article you may be interested in View link
No pictures,however.
I do live in Mancheste yes…but I have tried the M.E.N. in the past for other archive articles….the best way would to contact Manchester Central Libraries Archive department.
djmarkoneuk: Are you a Manchester resident? Maybe you could sweet talk the Manchester Evening News into letting us know if they have any archive photos also. I’m eager to get hold of newspaper ads from the 1960’s with the Cinerama logo on.
Can you please post the link? Thanks
yeah I found the images…….amazing…thank you.
http//www.manchester.gov.uk/localimages Try not to be misled if you get directed to the Manchester city Council Libraries homepage you will find it a dead end.
do you have a link to the Manchester local archives website ?
Plenty of interior pictures of the building on the Manchester local archives website-but from around the Edwardian theatre period however.One external photo on there from around 1950-Mario Lanza movie being shown there. Cinerama.topcities.com has a photo from 1965 if you look on the “Cinerama Theatres” page.
djmarkoneuk – please e-mail me on .uk I need to ask you a question!
that would be great…I have worked there for 4 years and I was up in the rafters today…I saw the back drops, Pulleys and curtains…..ther is alot of history up in that roof.
I am trying to get permission – watch this space, but don’t hold your breath! :–))
does anybody have any pictures of inside the building ?
a photo i took around 1986 when it was the Buckingham Bingo and in a really grotty state
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/2121464590/
A view of the rear of the Theatre Royal here:–
View link
The current name for the nightclub in the former Theatre Royal is ‘Royale’
The Cinerama screen was constructed in front of the original proscenium and was covered by huge red curtains. It had three-strip Cinerama initially, ‘How The West Was Won’ probably being the theatre’s biggest box-office! Later it showed 70mm films on the Cinerama screen.