Odeon Cinema, The Crescent West, Cleveleys, Blackpool

CLEVELEYS CINEMA £30,000 Scheme to Start Early in New Year - Early in the New Year work will begin on the construction of the new £30,000 super cinema for Cleveleys. Plans for the cinema, the architect for which is Mr. G. E. Tonge, Southport, have already been passed. The building is to be named the Odeon, and it will be built on a site opposite the Cleveleys tram station. Included in the scheme are plans for six shops and a large cafe. The cinema itself will seat 1,250 people, and there will be stage provision for dramatic performances. The cinema will be constructed on the lines the Garrick Theatre. Southport, which Mr Tonge also designed. The company owning the project will be a private limited concern, and will be styled Odeon (Cleveleys) Ltd. In all, the building will cover an area of about 2,000 square yards. [Lancashire Evening Post 18 December 1933 page 6]

Located on the corner of Crescent West and Runnymead Road, it was a cinema taken over in the course of construction by Oscar Deutsch's Odeon Theatres Ltd. chain and thus became the first Odeon cinema in the north of England. It had many of the hallmarks of the circuit, in particular the faience tiling, a cafe and a parade of five shops along the side of the cinema. It had 1,156 seats, only 256 of which were in the small balcony, the remaining 900 in the stalls. It was a very streamlined auditorium with ribs of plaster rising up the walls and across the ceiling   but decorative only, as they did not contain concealed lighting.

The Odeon opened on 24th November 1934 and was closed by the Rank Organisation on 7th January 1961. It became a live theatre for a few years until it became an independent bingo club in 1965 along with the new name of Orion.

Situated on a corner site, the rounded corner entrance was divided into three bays and was constructed of brick with faiance tiles to the ground floor below the rounded canopy. The wings to Crescent West and Runnymede Avenue are faiance tiled and each have three small square windows to the ground floor and three long narrow windows to the floors above. In 1961 the cinema was converted into a theatre and dressing rooms were introduced for this purpose. The building has been used as a bingo hall since 1965.

Reference    Lancashire Evening Post 18 December 1933 page 6
Reference    Builder 19 January 1934 Page 145
Reference    Builder 4 May 1934 Page 777
Reference    Pastscape