 |
 |
 |
|
____________________________________________________________________________________________ |
||
|
Blackpool Wonderful Blackpool By Donald Auty
|
||
|
Above - The Alhambra Blackpool - This was built on the site of the Prince Of Wales Theatre which was demolished in 1897. The Alhambra opened two years later before it was even complete. Its first proper season was in 1900 though and was something of a disaster. It was built by Wylson and Long for £382,000 and had three enormous spaces in one building, a 2,000 seat circus, a 3,000 capacity ballroom and a 3,000 seat theatre, as well as restaurants and a winter garden. The north side of the building comprised three circus floors topped by the ballroom, and the theatre, with its three balcony levels took up the whole of the south side. By 1902 the building and whole enterprise was Bankrupt. The Blackpool Tower Company bought the Alhambra in July 1903. Frank Matcham was brought in to redesign the interior, and it reopened as the Palace in July 1904, featuring one of the first moving staircases in the world. A cinema was incorporated in 1911 and an underground passageway between Tower and Palace was provided in 1914.
Above - The Blackpool Palace - From a postcard
Above - Site of The Blackpool Palace Theatre in 2003 - D.A.
|
||
|
Above - Francis Collins at the Palace Ballroom, |
||
|
The Blacks packed in the business when they were on top in 1966. Ken Dodd and the Bluebell Girls topped the last season for them. They could see the red light flashing for them when First Leisure were about to take over the Tower Company and got out whilst the going was good. They were a sad loss to the business.
|
||
|
Above - Bills and pictures from the 1938 Blackpool Tower & Winter Gardens Programme |
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
The
Palace complex housed a theatre, a cinema and a dance hall and was owned
by the Tower Company. The Palace Theatre presented top twice nightly
variety 52 weeks in the year and was very popular with the locals along
with its cheerful manager Harold Mellors and musical director Charles
Tovey. For the price of admission to the theatre or the cinema you could
then go along to the dance hall for the rest of the evening after the
show had finished without paying a penny more. The same conditions applied
at the 
one
It
was announced that the complex would close at the end of summer 1958
but George and Alfred Black would stage a last spectacular show there
for that summer. Mike and Bernie Winters were low on the bill with their
names about the same size as that of the printer. They did not go down
well and only had ten minutes to establish themselves very early in
the show. Many managements would have sacked them but George and Alf
did not and they completed the season. But George and Alf would cruelly
take their friends to the Palace saying come and watch these boys die.
