Interior - view of entrance foyer with ticket booth.

Description Interior - view of entrance foyer with ticket booth.

Date 1913

Collection Records of Bedford Lemere and Company, photographers, London, England

Catalogue Number BL 22372

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies B 64790, SC 717112

Scope and Content Foyer, The West End Playhouse, No 317 St George's Road, Glasgow (latterly known as The Metropole Theatre and now demolished) The West End Playhouse, designed by the architect, William B White, was built in 1910 as a theatre, although it subsidised most of its plays and variety bills from the proceeds of its cinema shows. The architectural photographer, Harry Bedford Lemere, was commissioned to photograph the interior shortly after the Playhouse opened in August, 1913. The foyer, designed in a Neo-Baroque style, was elliptical in shape. Elaborate Ionic-style pilasters lined the walls, and the ceiling had intricate plasterwork decoration in the form of flowers and fruits. The splendid arrangement of ferns and flowers in the centre of the picture was concealed behind a ring of bark facings, and above a window in the semicircular kiosk is a sign reading 'seats booked by telephone'. When the Playhouse opened in 1913, it was the very height of luxury, with a stylish, three-tiered auditorium that could seat almost 1,000 people, and a small orchestra and organ to accompany silent films. Patrons could book seats in advance by telephone for plays, variety bills or a range of cinema shows. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Medium Glass

External Reference Box 63

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/717096