The Grand Theatre - Matcham"s Masterpiece
Opened on July 23rd 1894, the Grand Theatre was dubbed Matcham's Masterpiece by Thomas Sergenson, Blackpool's first successful theatrical manager who had previously staged a circus on the same site.
Frank Matcham was a leading Victorian 'theatre architect' of the day and designed over two hundred theatres throughout the British Isles.
His brief from Thomas Sergenson was to build 'the best, prettiest and cosiest theatre possible.
' The theatre was built in just nine months and cost Thomas Sergenson 20,000 pounds, money that he had earned partly from the income of two other smaller theatres and the aforementioned circus.
The Grand Theatre was to thrive under Sergenson's leadership until 1909 when he sold the theatre to the Blackpool Tower Company realising a significant profit.
The theatre continued to prosper through the Great War and into the 1930s when competition appeared in the form of the new 'talking pictures'.
The Grand fought back by being a theatre through the summer season and a cinema during the off peak winter months.
Attendances began to fall in the 1960s with the rise of television and astonishingly plans were filed in 1972 for the demolition of the theatre, but as the building had a Grade 11 listing this was thankfully was not to take place.
The then owners, EMI, with agreement of the council were allowed to use the site as a bingo hall providing some refurbishment were to take place in the now derelict building.
This was the situation for the next three years when a group calling themselves the Friends of the Grand, formed in 1973, negotiated a lease with support from the Blackpool Borough Council to buy back the Grand over a period of years.
The deal was finalised on 1st October 1980 and after extensive refurbishment the Blackpool Grand Theatre reopened on 23rd March 1981 to stage the Shakespeare's 'Merchant of Venice' with Prunella Scales and Timothy West in the lead roles.
Later on that year the Royal Variety Show was performed before HRH Prince Charles, thus endorsing the theatres return.
A restoration scheme undertaken in 1990s was completed in 2007 costing in the region of three million pounds.
Frank Matcham was a leading Victorian 'theatre architect' of the day and designed over two hundred theatres throughout the British Isles.
His brief from Thomas Sergenson was to build 'the best, prettiest and cosiest theatre possible.
' The theatre was built in just nine months and cost Thomas Sergenson 20,000 pounds, money that he had earned partly from the income of two other smaller theatres and the aforementioned circus.
The Grand Theatre was to thrive under Sergenson's leadership until 1909 when he sold the theatre to the Blackpool Tower Company realising a significant profit.
The theatre continued to prosper through the Great War and into the 1930s when competition appeared in the form of the new 'talking pictures'.
The Grand fought back by being a theatre through the summer season and a cinema during the off peak winter months.
Attendances began to fall in the 1960s with the rise of television and astonishingly plans were filed in 1972 for the demolition of the theatre, but as the building had a Grade 11 listing this was thankfully was not to take place.
The then owners, EMI, with agreement of the council were allowed to use the site as a bingo hall providing some refurbishment were to take place in the now derelict building.
This was the situation for the next three years when a group calling themselves the Friends of the Grand, formed in 1973, negotiated a lease with support from the Blackpool Borough Council to buy back the Grand over a period of years.
The deal was finalised on 1st October 1980 and after extensive refurbishment the Blackpool Grand Theatre reopened on 23rd March 1981 to stage the Shakespeare's 'Merchant of Venice' with Prunella Scales and Timothy West in the lead roles.
Later on that year the Royal Variety Show was performed before HRH Prince Charles, thus endorsing the theatres return.
A restoration scheme undertaken in 1990s was completed in 2007 costing in the region of three million pounds.
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