Tyneside Cinema

About Tyneside Cinema

Tyneside Cinema opened on 1 February 1937 as the Bijou News-Reel Cinema, designed and built by Dixon Scott, a Newcastle entrepreneur and great-uncle of the film directors Ridley and Tony Scott. Scott had travelled widely and decorated the foyer and first-floor landing with Art Deco work carrying Middle and Far Eastern influences, much of which survives. It showed newsreels, travel films, sport and cartoons on a continuous loop for city-centre audiences, and it remains the last purpose-built newsreel theatre in the United Kingdom still in full-time operation. The building is Grade II listed.

A £7 million restoration between November 2006 and May 2008 uncovered original stained glass and mosaic flooring that had been hidden for decades, while adding digital projection and additional screens. Alongside the original Classic auditorium the cinema now runs the Roxy and Electra screens, and its programme leans towards independent, world, archive and documentary film rather than mainstream releases, supported by the British Film Institute and Arts Council England. It operates as a registered charity with an education and talent development remit. The Coffee Rooms and bar occupy the historic upper floors, and the entrance sits between Pilgrim Street and Northumberland Street, under a minute from Monument Metro.

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A Grainger Town Heritage Walk: Newcastle's Georgian Heart

Newcastle's classical core was laid out in the 1830s and 1840s by Richard Grainger, John Dobson and John Clayton. This walking route links Grey Street, the Grainger Market and the Theatre Royal with the medieval castle that gave the city its name.

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