A Look at the Old Adelphi Cinema

 

 

View of the side of the old Adelphi Cinema, seen from Adelphi Gardens

 

The Adelphi opened in 1930, with its first movie being On With the Show!, an all-singing all-dancing new musical talkie, directed by Alan Crosland who had had mega-success with his film The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson just a couple of years prior. Other than films, the Adelphi hosted live music, ballroom dancing, social functions and even wrestling. Over the years some big names finally realised their artistic ambitions by playing in Slough: Yehudi Menuhin, Roy Orbison, Little Richard, Nana Mouskouri, the Walker Brothers and even some backwater talent contest runner-ups called The Beatles in 1963. The Rolling Stones did a gig here in the 60s, and were asked to leave by a lady who worked there as they were so scruffy she had no idea who they were!

 

Far superior to those rank amateurs was one James Marshall ‘Jimi’ Hendrix, who performed here in the mid 60s with the Experience, on tour supporting Engelbert Humperdinck. Forget Woodstock, Hendrix plays Slough! Older locals still remember the occasion: one lady related to me the story of how she and her friends had gone there to see the dreamy Engelbert, only to find the wild man of rock opening the night. “You could smell him from the other side of the room,” she recalled, adding “It was so loud we spent the whole time in the toilets”. And with that glowing praise, Slough cements itself in rock history forever.

 

 

View of the side of the old Adelphi Cinema (built in 1929)

 

For many years the Adelphi Cinema was the focal point of the town’s entertainment, including music, theatre, ballroom dancing and movies. It was built in 1929 and designed by Eric Norman Bailey of Maidenhead. Cinemas are functional buildings, and can be difficult to design appealingly as they don’t require windows or other features, and need to be large enough inside to house an audience and give decent acoustics. The picture above shows the back of the building (the front being obviously more elaborate), and the grim brick monolith has been lent a bit of old-fashioned charm by retaining the old Adelphi letters– in its day a form of advertising, now an echo of the town’s past and heritage; many a little nipper’s face would have lit up at the sight of these letters.

 

Smaller venues could be tucked away in the terrace of a high street, with all the focus being on the frontage and entrance, but there’s no hiding once you reach behemoth-size. Built with over 2,000 seats, the free-standing Adelphi was an ancestor of the massive, multiscreen ‘multiplexes’ we see today, built large enough to service a large customer base that had grown with the town (when the cinema opened in 1930, the town’s population was double what it had been just ten years prior). Its variety of uses, particularly for local functions and dance evenings, would have meant it could serve as a hub for social entertainment, rather than the more individualistic experiences you get in such venues today. The Adelphi ceased to function as a cinema many years ago, but still retains a bit of that old social entertainment character in its new life as… a bingo hall! Eyes Down!

 

 

Adelphi Cinema, now Gala Bingo, seen from the Bath Road

 

A view of the front of the building, in need of a little love and restoration-- certainly the grubby entrance and filthy parapet could do with a bit of refurb. Give it a new paintjob, get rid of that duff Gala billboard, lose the scaffolding, do up the entrance and this could be one impressive edifice.