ELECTRIC PALACE

A few months ago - although it might be over a year ago by now - I happened to spot that a crumbling old picture house near to where my mother lives had inadvertently told a story in the way the staff had worded the signage at the front of the building. As far as it went as a bit of my writing, it was a bit of a nonsense piece which filled a morning for us and, at best was fairly forgettable, although one or two people remarked upon what an impressive building it was, which was terribly sweet of them.

Anyway, I’ve always been quite fond of the older buildings that surround us, and the old picture palaces can be favourites as they always seem to have something rich exciting about their design which was supposed to convince the potential punter to pass through their portals and explore the mysteries to be found inside in the darkness.

Amidst the general air of artifice and glitz that always seems to accompany the world of entertainment, somehow both cinema and theatre designers and architects seemed to create something rather wonderful, usually a fanciful reworking of the embellishment and detailing of Georgian or Jacobean architecture with a hint of the exotic, or the Mediterranean which, of course, also had its roots in the ancient worlds of classical Greek and Roman architecture, which is also, of course, where much of modern theatre and storytelling also has its roots.

Hand in hand through history, the arts and the architecture of a bygone age adding just a hint of respectability to a profession so very steeped in being outside the mainstream and just a little bit dangerous...

Isn’t this fabulous…? Not the picture, of course, that’s fairly ordinary, but the building itself. A beautifully preserved relic from a bygone age still hanging on in there at the edge of a country that seems hell-bent on redeveloping all of the heart and soul out of itself.

It’s the “Electric Palace” cinema in Harwich, and I love it, with the “one shilling ticket” doors to the left (for the gentry) and the “sixpenny” ones to the right (for the hoi polloi). ’Twas ever thus; the “thems” and the “us” brought together to enjoy the entertainments provided by the outsiders and the mavericks. I can just picture it now, all of them sitting (almost) together in the dark and waiting for the magic to unfold.