Granada Tooting

More images from 2010 here:-

TOOTING GRANADA - Exterior

TOOTING GRANADA - Hall of Mirrors

TOOTING GRANADA - Balcony

TOOTING GRANADA - Entrance Foyer

TOOTING GRANADA - Stage

My mum was an usherette at The Granada in the early 50s. I know she had some photos taken there with the other usherettes in their uniforms and with John Wayne. Is there any chance some of the photos have been kept somewhere?

That’s a nice theater.

Lovely to see it today as part of the Annual ‘Open House’ event. Amazing so much survives, though it could do with some refurb. Best of all a chance to see the beautiful Wurlitzer. Hope they get the money to restore it again after the flood.

On a related topic, I’m researching a book about a man who was prosecuted in 1936 for having sex with a 16-year-old usher from the Granada Tooting. They made contact in the cinema and arranged to go to the Strand Palace Hotel. The lad in question had been posing for 2 – 3 years for nude pictures for ‘connoisseurs’, so was obviously experienced and this seems to be a little bit of a ‘vice ring’. What I’m wondering is whether this kind of thing was common. Whether cinemas and ushers/usherettes were known for this in the 1930s in the way that Music Halls were in the 1870s-90s. Anyone got any information?

Historic photographs of the Granada as a cinema, and its Wurlitzer organ console:
http://www.ukwurlitzer.co.cc/1523.html

Video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzfmM2oH5NM

A set of photographs of the Granada Tooting here:
View link

After several years of planning and many months of work, the magnificent Wurlitzer theatre organ was finally released from its ‘tomb’ under the bingo callers podium. A new lift has been installed so that the organ console can now rise up again. The first public concert to held on the organ since the early 1970’s took place on 22nd April 2007 and a further three concerts were planned for later in 2007.

On Friday 20th July 2007 disaster struck when south London and many parts of southern and western England were hit by violent storms, when 4 inches of rain fell out the sky in less than one hour, causing severe flooding. At the Granada Theatre the organ chambers, which are located under the stage and the console were flooded and concerts have been cancelled for this year while repairs are carried out to the instrument

Hello all, I’m researching the Granada, and if anyone (Ramondo included) has memories about the old days – pre Bingo – I’d love to hear from you. Thanks

I was delighted to come upon this great website .
I worked at the magnificent Granada Theatre at Tooting Broadway
in the very early nineteen sixties .
Charles Shaw was the General Manager . Jim Carson was the Cheif
Projectionist whom I worked under as trainee projectionist ,eventually becoming second projectionist ,doing also work on sound ,lighting ,and props .
The earliest film I remember screening there was “Idol on parade "
starring Anthony Newley .
I was there nearly four years and saw some of the great recording artists of that period performing on our stage to some three thousand fans .
When working on stage ,the shreiks and screams from the girls was competing with the noise from the amplified instruments of the artists .
I would love to share some of the wonderful memories I have of my time there with anyone interested .

An exterior photograph from woody showing the building in its current use as a Gala Bingo Club in September 2003:
View link

Thanks to woody; for these excellent recent photographs

Auditorium view from the rear of the balcony
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/48977123/

Coffered ceiling and chandelier fitting above the circle
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/48977121/

Close-up detail of the coffered ceiling
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/48977122/

I mention in the opening description that the Wurlitzer organ came from a theatre in Sacramento, California. I was originally installed in 1926 in the Majestic Theatre, Sacramento. CA and modified and enlarged for the Granada Tooting installation in 1931