Playhouse

In Loughborough, Leicestershire, the entertainment offered over the years on this site (now rather unprepossessingly a car park for Sainsbury’s) has been as extensive and varied as one can imagine.

The story should have started on Monday 14th September 1896, but the opening of the New Theatre was put back a day, to Tuesday 15th. This was a basic wood and corrugated-iron building, erected on vacant land next to the gas works, that closed the following year for “extensive alterations…with new seating and an enlarged stage, an imposing porch and eight commodious dressing rooms”.

Perhaps unusually for the time, smoking was “strictly prohibited” - but then, rather ironically, the theatre burned down at the end of August 1901. (The cause of the fire is not recorded, but the hot weather had dried the timber of the building to matchwood, and the fire brigade concentrated on saving the adjoining buildings.)

The management’s intention to re-build was thwarted by the council, mindful in part of the proximity of the largest gasometer, despite the plans, outlining a brick structure, being passed by the Highway Committee.

However, a public building was erected, and the Premier Skating Rink was opened on Wednesday 10 November 1909 by the Premier Rink Company.

Unfortunately the attraction of the rink soon waned and, as with many such structures, in 1911 it was re-launched as the Picture Playhouse.

Regrettably, this was not much more successful, and the operating company was wound up in late 1912. A new company, Loughborough Playhouse Ltd, rose from the ashes and the cinema re-opened as the New Playhouse on Saturday 26th October 1912.

By the 1920’s it was being advertised simply as The Playhouse. It closed in June 1927 for conversion into “a first class Dance Hall” and re-opened on Monday 12th September 1927 as the Premier Dance Hall.

Presumably this was no more successful, as a proposal was put forward in October 1930 to demolish the building and replace it with an entirely new cinema, to be called the Regal. But this was never proceeded with.

Instead, in 1933, the building was acquired by Charles Deeming. Initially he was said to be very proud of the Premier’s dance floor, but his re-building of the Empire to include a ballroom made the Premier redundant to circuit requirements. At the same time Loughborough College was in need of space for extension, so the Premier closed on Saturday 2nd May 1936.

Initially it was used by the Department of Aeronautical Engineering, and later as the College Refectory. Happily, during its time as the Engineer’s Dining Hall, in the late-1950’s/early-1960’s, the college film society held its screenings there, bringing back some memories of the building’s cinematic past.

Eventually the building became surplus to the college’s requirements and it was demolished in the late-1970’s/early-1980’s. As noted in the introduction, the site is now occupied by Sainsbury’s car park.

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