Odeon Shirley

DavidKH on December 5, 2022 at 8:23 am

This was my local cinema as a child and was great!

Apart from the normal film shows, there was a Saturday morning cinema club for kids. Cartoons, old serial and a short feature. Children were invited onto the stage to dance - lots of forceful instructions to keep away from the silver screen!

Towards the end the stalls were converted for bingo before films ceased completely.

Every Remembrance Sunday the cinema opened for a special Remembrance event - a semi formal religious service which followed on from a parade of various organisations (Boys Brigade, Guides etc) at the local war memorial. At one of the last of the services before this ended I took part and had to stand at the ‘lecturn’ to read something (I was about 15 at the time). The odd thing was that the ‘lecturn’ was actually a bingo calling machine complete with numbered balls and covered with a cloth to give a bit more dignity to the affair! (The cinema was chosen as the venue as it was the biggest auditorium in the area - in fact the biggest in the Borough of Solihull which was technically outside the City of Birmingham.

Ken Roe on February 15, 2011 at 1:04 pm

A close-up of the entrance in 1935, shortly after opening:
http://www.mawgrim.co.uk/cavalcade/shirley1.jpg
A vintage photograph of the Odeon Shirley in 1950:
http://www.mawgrim.co.uk/cavalcade/shirley2.jpg
Playing the Rank release in 1971:
http://www.mawgrim.co.uk/cavalcade/shirley.jpg