Lyric Cinema
48-60 High Street,
Belfast,
BT1 2BE
48-60 High Street,
Belfast,
BT1 2BE
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Additional Info
Architects: John MacGeagh, William Moore
Firms: Moore & Flanaghan
Previous Names: Panopticon
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The Panopticon opened on 22nd February 1912. It was owned by Fred Stewart, a well known pioneer of early cinemas in Belfast. In 1917 it was listed in a Belfast Directory as a cinema and waxworks, no doubt indicating multiple usage, similar to the famous Panopticon in Glasgow. At that time the seating capacity was only 350 but in 1924, after extensive refurbishment and a change of name to Lyric Cinema, the seating capacity was increased to 750.
The Lyric Cinema was destroyed by German bombs in the Blitz in May 1941. The programme screening that week was Arthur Lucan in “Old Mother Riley in Business” & Leslie Banks in “The Door with Seven Locks”. (aka in USA “Chamber of Horrors”). The site is now occupied by a 15-storey office block named River House, with retail use on the ground floor.
Contributed by
David Simpson
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Recent comments (view all 3 comments)
Architect for the conversion from retail premises to a cinema was William Moore, these plans were submitted in 1911. Extensive premises of C. Millar & Co., house furnishers, being converted into cinema by Mr Alex Murdoch, Cullingree Rd. Further alterations were carried out to the plans of John MacGeagh in 1930, by then called the Lyric Cinema. John MacGeagh also made further changes in 1932, the removal of side balcony in High Street.
The original plans for the Panopticon Cinema were submitted by Isidore Clifford of Belfast Electric Theatres Ltd. It was planned as a companion hall to the Shaftesbury Pictoria, Shaftesbury Square which had opened in 1910. Architects Moore & Flanaghan of Royal Avenue, Belfast, who had designed the Pictoria, were appointed to design the Panopticon.
Seating capacity was to be 500; this was reduced by the time of opening to 340, which turned out to be too small. The Pictoria had a feature unique to Belfast, the mounting of the screen on the entrance wall of the building. This proved to be a mistake and may have contributed to the Pictoria’s early demise. The mistake was not repeated at the Panopticon where the screen was located on the far wall and the projection box was at the High Street end.
Barely five months after opening in December 1910, the Pictoria closed (see separate entry on Cinema Treasures). Belfast Electric Theatres was wound up and so the Panopticon was left unfinished.
Fortunately, into the breach stepped Fred Stewart. An audience at the opening was promised “a revelation in cinematography” and “the last word in living pictures”.
The entry for this cinema in the Belfast and Ulster Street Directory (1912) names it as the Electric Cinematograph Theatre and also states that it is in the course of erection. Perhaps this was to be its intended name, then the management had second thoughts and it became the Panopticon.
The Panopticon’s address (42-46 High Street) has long ceased to exist. The former cinema site is now part of 48-60 High Street, BT1 2BE, the address of River House, a 15-storey office block with retail and other businesses on the ground floor.