The Essex theatre was constructed in the 1930s – no surprise given its style, and was officially opened on the 5th of September 1938, with ‘The Hurricane’ being the first film to be projected onto the cinema screen. The huge cinema had seats for 2,200 theatre goers and even had a 50 seater restaurant on site.
The cinema functioned through wartime and the decades that followed with little change, going strong until business began to falter by the 1970s. It was then purchased by the Mecca Leisure Group, who spent £20,000 on the cinema to try and bring in new customers. Restoration work occurred on the old organ in 1982, and for several years Sunday afternoon concerts were held. With film rental on the rise and modern multi-screen cinemas becoming more attractive than old theatres, Mecca finally left the building. A closing night was held on the 5th of September 1988, exactly 50 years after it opened, and the very same film ‘The Hurricane’ was shown. In the same year the cinema was filmed for the big screen, where it was chosen as a location for a sequence in the film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”