St. James Theatre

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Uploaded on: October 31, 2026

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In July 1929 Union Theatres and Benjamin Fuller made arrangements for Western Electric sound to be installed at the St James and for UT to open the Al Jolson talkie “The Singing Fool” on 10 August. The lease arrangement (which lasted until the end of 1931) contained flexibility of live and film programming. A year later on 12 September 1930 Hugh D. McIntosh (who had vacated the Tivoli in Castlereagh Street opposite a year earlier) commenced a sub-lease of the St James and ran legitimate shows until the last folded on 19 November. (His whole Rickard’s Tivoli enterprise, teetering for some time, was promptly declared insolvent). A few days before this closure Ernest C. Rolls signed a lease with Union Theatres and opened the St James at Xmas 1930 with a pantomime (“Puss In Boots”).