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The Empire Theatre, Wakefield Road, Dewsbury

Above - The Dewsbury Empire Theatre - From a postcard

The Empire Theatre, Wakefield Road, Dewsbury was built in 1909 and designed by the architects Chadwick and Watson who also designed the Alhambra, Bradford.

The auditorium was on three levels, Stalls and two Circles and was noted for having good sight-lines because the circles were carried on two huge beams rather than pillars. Because of their size the beams took much manoeuvring through the streets of Dewsbury in order to get them to the site of the Theatre when it was being constructed and were considered very advanced at the time of its building.

The Royal Ballet performed there during the war, but with only a piano for accompaniment. The Theatre paid until the day it closed in 1955 when the company was forced into liquidation, due to debts incurred by other theatres in the circuit. The last production at the Empire was by the Dewsbury Operatic Society which leased the building (minus staff) for one last production. The theatre was never converted to a cinema. It was demolished in 1960 and the unlovely Empire House was built on the site.

The above information on the Empire Theatre is courtesy John West.

When Dewsbury was a power in pantomime by Donald Auty

Above - A Drawing of the Dewsbury Empire by Ivor Westwood, produced for the Dewsbury Arts Group in 1977 in connection with a specially devised show performed by the Group in February 1978 called "Remember the Empire" - Courtesy Ivor Westwood and the Dewsbury Arts Group.

Fifty years ago Dewsbury was an important place in the world of Christmas pantomime. The Empire Theatre had one of the best and longest running pantos in the North of England and it was all home grown. The theatre was large, almost 2000 seats and the shows ran from Christmas Eve until the beginning of March, most of performances were sold out, therefore in excess of 150,000 people visited the Christmas attraction each year.

The pantomimes had been pretty run of the mill touring productions until the theatre was taken over in the late forties by Richard Stephenson, who also ran theatres in; Barrow in Furness, New Brighton and Leicester. He decided to run a first class pantomime season at the Empire. He already had scenic and wardrobe workshops in a disused Methodist chapel in West Town so all the costumes and the lavish scenery could be manufactured here on the doorstep of the theatre.

Reg Bolton, a comedian who had been well known at theatre before the war was commissioned to produce, write the book, and to play principle comic. All the original music was written by the pit orchestra pianist, Arthur Dickenson, many of the supporting parts were cast from the artistes who were in Stephenson's repertory companies for seasons during the summer months in all the theatres that he ran and the teams of stage management came from the same source.

Above - An Audience packs the auditorium of the Empire Theatre, Dewsbury - Courtesy John West

The manufacture of make belief was an all year round job at the old chapel in West Town, costumes were designed and made, scenery designed and built, Cinderellas coach painted and fitted out with fairy lights and the magic carpet for Aladdin made to fly. There was a full and part time staff of around a dozen people employed on all this for fifty two weeks of the year.

At the theatre meetings with principle artistes took place; contracts were arranged script conferences attended; and. a party bookings department was set up that contacted all factories, working mens clubs, churches and schools within a seventy miles radius and the bookings started to roll in. Lavish posters were printed and they went out on sights throughout the Heavy Woollen District plus Leeds and Bradford. By the end of November it was impossible to obtain a seat for any Friday night, Saturday matinee or Saturday evening performance through out the run.

Rehearsals commenced at the beginning of the second week in December and all the artistes assembled in the town plus a sixteen strong dancing troupe of Florence Whiteley's Zio Angels, who stole many a young man's heart during the next fourteen weeks. Until the week before Christmas the regular show would be on at the theatre in the evenings and these exotic, glamorous pantomime people, the men dressed in camel haired overcoats, the women, made up to the eyes, dressed in fashionable short skirts with fur coats would assemble in the Scarborough Hotel and The Little Saddle which were also theatrical digs to quoff innumerable pints of guiness and gin and tonics after rehearsals ended. You did not see their like in Dewsbury very often in those days. They added a scintillating extra attraction to the pre Christmas atmosphere of the town.

The week before Christmas the full company plus the augmented orchestra moved into the theatre to rehearse with costumes and scenery and this culminated on the day before Christmas Eve with a full dress rehearsal which always went on until the early hours of the morning. The cast, orchestra, stage staff, and wardrobe department, then dog tired dragged themselves off to sleep fitfully in their homes or digs, only to return to the theatre at ten o'clock on Christmas Eve morning to put finishing touches to the show. There were no such things as unsociable hours at the Dewsbury Empire fifty years ago.

Above - Behind the Town Hall in this photograph can be seen the Empire Theatre, Dewsbury - Courtesy John West

Opening night was a glittering affair with a packed house attended by the Mayor, Council, chief constable, local dignitaries and some times the local member of parliament.

What a show it was from the moment the fourteen piece orchestra struck up the overture under the direction of Stanley Jackson who conducted magnificently dressed in tails ,with a carnation in his button hole and his blonde hair glittering in the limelight. The curtain would rise to reveal the demon king plotting dastardly deeds and the good fairy promising to thwart them. Next the village scene with all sixteen Zio Angels doing a lively song and dance plus, the dame dressed in outrageous costume, simple simon, simple as ever, the hilarious brokers men, and the principle boy statuesque and looking splendid in fish net tights.

Kitchen scenes with the stage covered in decorators paint and flower, twelve pert juveniles specially picked from the cream of Dewsbury dancing schools and a magnificent ballet with dancers dressed as nymphs, birds, and animals completed the first half.

During the interval, the auditorium awash with ice cream and lemonade the manager announced over the back stage microphone the names of all the parties present and Stanley Jackson and the orchestra played a selection of popular songs for the audience to sing.

The second half opened with the Zio Angels doing a kicking routine, thirty two shapely legs moving in absolute precision followed by further spectacular scenes, Alexander's Wonder Dogs presented by Miss Irene, the song sheet with Simple Simon when the audience sang "I do like a nice mince pie " until they were hoarse and a magnificent finale with glittering scenery and all the artistes walking down an enormous stair case dressed in fabulous costumes to take their finale applause. Simple Simon made his final joke, the audience and cast stood whilst the orchestra played "God Save the Queen " ; the plush house curtain fell, the orchestra played a cheerful reprise of a popular song from the show as the audience poured out of the theatre feeling that they had been treated to a "reet good nite owt".

Above - The Dewsbury Empire orchestra in 1911 - Courtesy Peter Lindup.

Many big names appeared in the Empire pantomimes before they became famous including Hylda Baker and Morecambe and Wise. There were well established supporting artistes such as Ken Wilson, Harry Sheils, Joe Black; glamorous principle boys like Sheila Hannaway, Kitty Prince and well known specialty acts; The Falcons, The Great Alexandra Troupe, and Tarzan and Mowgli, the latter dressed in an ape skin used to run up and down rope ladders and along the edge of the circle and gallery during the interval.

Every night motor coaches lined Wakefield Road and Long Causeway waiting to take the audience home to places as far apart as Chesterfield, Hull, Middlesbrough and Oldham when they came out of the theatre satiated by their three hours of entertainment.
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During the rest of the year the Empire never did really good business even though star names appeared there, but it was so big that enough money was taken on a Friday and Saturday night to get everyone out of trouble.

The theatres in Leeds and Bradford belonged to powerful circuits who had houses in all the major cities of the country. The directors of these became frightened and jealous of the kind of business that was happening at the Empire which seated more people than any other theatre in the West Riding. They put a clause in their contracts barring artistes who worked for them from appearing at the Empire. Television was becoming more and more popular and audiences dwindled, coupled with this Reg Bolton, the driving force behind the pantomime died shortly after Christmas 1954.

The Empire closed abruptly one Saturday night in April 1955 and was demolished in the early sixties to make way for Empire house, a block of offices. It is a sad loss for the town.

As for me; the pantomimes gave me the inspiration to go on and work in the production side of the theatre and I am still working in it almost fifty years later. The odd times that I visit Dewsbury and walk past the site of the old theatre I imagine that I can hear the sound of Stanley Jackson and the orchestra striking up the overture.

When Dewsbury was a power in pantomime was kindly written for this site by Donald Auty and is part of his article Pantomime In the 1940s & 1950s.

Pioneer Theatre, Dewsbury

Above - The Pioneer Industrial Society Building, later the Pioneer Co-operative Society’s building, and later still the Pioneer Theatre - Courtesy John West

The Pioneer Theatre was a conversion of the Pioneer Hall on the top floor of the Pioneer Co-operative Society’s building (which was listed Grade II due to the efforts of John West.) The stage and dressing rooms were very primitive. A single circle was constructed at the time of conversion and it was said that it was entirely done with materials supplied by the Co-Op. It was later converted to a cinema and then converted for Bingo which only closed relatively recently.

The theatre was on the second floor and accessed by a staircase in the clock tower. The later circle cut across the windows in the bay to the right of the tower and the next window as well. The stage was in the similar pedimented bay furthest from the clock tower. The building still stands but in 2009 s currently vacant.

Above text and image courtesy John West.

If you have any more information or images for this Theatre that you are willing to share please Contact me.

The Hippodrome, Dewsbury

Also known as the Picturehouse

The Dewsbury Hippodrome was built in 1880.

The Theatre was destroyed by fire in 1896.

The Hippodrome was then rebuilt the same year in 1896 and was in use until 1919.

The Theatre was demolished in 1950.

A visitor to the site, Julie Callanan, says: 'I have a telegram sent to my grandmother in August 1913 booking her for a week at the "Dewsbury Hippodrome", which the agent who booked her calls a "Picturehouse with one turn". I see from the National Archives that the "Dewsbury Picture House" was in the probate of J T Auty of Ossett in 1914.' - Julie Callanan.

If you have any more information or images for this Theatre that you are willing to share please Contact me.

The Theatre Royal, Dewsbury

The Theatre Royal, Dewsbury was built in 1865 by the renowned Theatre Architect Frank Matcham and was sited adjacent to a mill near the Market Place and the present Ring Road.

The theatre was later converted to a cinema called The Tudor and the interior was re-constructed with this theme in the 1930s. The Council demolished the building in the 1960s and the vacant site was then used for car parking.

Above text courtesy John West.

If you have any more information or images for this Theatre that you are willing to share please Contact me.