ENGLAND'S LAST SILENT THEATRE

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 134, 8 June 1935, Page 25

ENGLAND'S LAST SILENT THEATRE

England's last silent cinema opens three times a week showing "flickies" at twopence a seat—it's the one bright spot in. the.dismally depressed Cotton Town of Royton, Lancashire, says the "News-Chronicle."

They come from miles around to be thrilled by Pearl White chasing crooks across the girders; to weep at Constance Talmadge; to cheer gallant Rod la Rocque.

But the man behind it all, the top-of-the-bill attraction, is Albert Green— "noises oH" on the grand piano. He used to be musical director for the three cinemas owned by Mr. J. Cheetham.

Now two of them have gone over to "talkies" and on his concert grand he is left to interpret the old silent films to : a wondering generation at the Electra Picture House, Royton. For three hours his fingers dash up and down the keyboard without a stop. He mingles Schumann and Beethoven with "The Bing Boys," switching, according to the shadows

on the screen, from the deathly dramatic to the sweetly sentimental.

And if the picture should flicker beyond recognition—Albert Green strikes up "Wagon Wheels," and all the audience joins in a riotous chorus.

He is an A.R.C.M. and an M.R.S.T., and he has played almost every tune published. T,hat is in twenty years in the orchestra pit.

He still holds the fort for the "flickies."

The Electra will never show talking pictures, Mr. Cheetham told a re' porter-rand so did Bill the Back Stage Man, electrician, and producer.

"Give me the silents every time," he thundered. "There's more story in them. Those chaps can act, too, without all that wisecracking and jazz bands."

Bill was asked why the Western Electric Company's census had revealed that his cinema was the only surviving silent one.

"Well .. ." he replied. "I'm told there's a tremendous lot. of deaf and dumb people in these parts. ..."