ABC Keighley

38 Alice Street,
Keighley, BD21 3DA

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Additional Info

Previously operated by: Associated British Cinemas Ltd., Union Cinema Co. Ltd.

Architects: Samuel Beverley

Firms: Verity and Beverley

Functions: Bingo Hall

Styles: Streamline Moderne

Previous Names: Ritz Cinema

Nearby Theaters

ABC Keighley

Following the take over of Union Cinemas by Associated British Cinemas, a number of theatres planned and started by Union opened under the ABC control, including the Ritz Cinema in the West Yorkshire town of Keighley, which opened on 28th February 1938.

Seating 1,526 and provided with a Compton 3Manual/5Rank organ and small variety stage the Ritz Cinema was the most luxurious theatre in the area and it even had the facility of a café-restaurant which seated 100. It was designed by the well respected firm of Verity & Beverley with Sam Beverley acting as the chief architect for the scheme.

It was renamed ABC on 30th July 1971 and showed its last film on 2nd February 1974, its end apparently hastened by the fuel crisis which crippled the UK at that time.

Eventually it was converted to bingo becoming a Gala Bingo Club and remains in that mode from June 2018 as a Buzz Bingo Club. A false floor has been constructed at balcony level but above that the Ritz Cinema auditorium survives unaltered. Alice Street is a side road near to the town centre but just far enough off the beaten track - so the site has not yet proved attractive to developers.

It was announced in March 2023 that the Buzz Bingo Club will close on April 10, 2023.

Contributed by Ian Grundy

Recent comments (view all 5 comments)

Ian
Ian on January 27, 2006 at 12:09 pm

Photo (as bingo hall) here:

View link

JohnnyCrow
JohnnyCrow on July 5, 2007 at 1:30 pm

I saw Paint Your Waggon with my Grandma when I was about 10 years old

Ken Roe
Ken Roe on April 6, 2010 at 11:08 pm

The ABC, photographed in February 1974, just after closing as a cinema:
View link

buzzer999
buzzer999 on January 31, 2014 at 8:55 pm

My father, Alfred Busfield, used to be a projectionist here in the 1950s, I used to be a member of the ‘ABC Minors’ club.

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