Cannon Norwich

My cousin, a projectionist at this lovely cinema (he had worked in the industry since the early 1960’s) invited me to the final day of it’s operation at the tail end of 2001. It was a very sad day for the staff, but nice to be there. I saw several films there over the years, my favourite event was going to see six “Star Trek” films play together in early 1992.

This cinema had full stage facilities, a fly tower and a raked stage, stage boxes and an ornate safety curtain. The image in the pitcture shows it after the “moderniastions” post war. The later sub-divisions made for two very long, narrow mini cinemas in the former stalls area. The circle formed the main screen and a further screen was in the former bar. This was an other cinema built as a theatre where no projection room was designed by the architect. An area to the rear of the stalls was partitioned-off to form a projection room. After the sub-dision the throw of the projectors went over the corridors that gave access to the downstairs screens. It was reported that the two Phillips projectors ran at different speeds so the same film took longer on one machine than the other. When the circle was made into the main screen a new projection room was constucted at the back. Strangly, there were no walls behind the pleated curtains either side of the screen. Films had to be placed on an old door to be carried up to circle level via a staircase with. a landing that over-hung the adjacent cottages. There was no lens turret for ‘scope films on the Phillips projector and the lens for that was kept in a case on the floor. It had to be manually changed from 'scope to widescreen.