Birth of a legend 1911-1939
HENRY VIII
The Electric’s first presentation
The first film to be shown at the Electric was a silent period drama starring Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree as the eponymous English king. Entry was 3d or 6d, with reserved seating for 1/-. Admission included a tempting bun and an orange, likely care of an early link between the cinema and the nearby Portobello Market.
Beerbohm Tree is a grand figure in the English arts, founding RADA and being the first to play Professor Henry Higgins in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion on stage, although his tendency to ad-lib infuriated the playwright. He was the illegitimate father of director Carol Reed (The Third Man) and grandfather to the late Oliver Reed.
The film itself, a Shakespearean styled biopic running to 25 minutes, is believed to be lost, as no prints have ever come to light. According to an exclusivity deal, prints had to be destroyed six weeks after their run finished. Director William G. B. Barker was more renowned as a producer (he only directed four films, including a silent version of Hamlet) and the man who founded Ealing Studios.
CHERYL DEvLin*
Fruit & Veg Market Trader
Cheryl runs the fruit and veg stall outside the Electric. The life and soul of Portobello Road, Cheryl knows everyone by name. A fourth generation market trader, she has always lived around the corner. Back in the 70s, Cheryl’s mum got her and her friends on roller skates dropping leaflets through everyone’s letterbox about getting the cinema building listed.
The accepted opening date is February 27, 1911 — records can be sketchy, and one theory has it opening on Christmas Eve, 1910 — when the Portobello Road’s most famous inhabitant threw wide its doors and cinema patrons first flooded in. In one shape or another, barring a closure in the 80s and 90s, the famous building (the road’s only cinema) at number 191 has been a beacon of filmgoing ever since. The first film to be shown, on that wintry day? Henry VIII starring Sir Beerbohm Tree as the titular monarch.
In 1910, the architect Gerald Seymour Valentin received a commission to create a purpose-built cinema on the site of a timber yard in Notting Hill. Enthusiasm for ‘electric theatres’ was on the rise throughout London, and the Portobello area was already justly proud of its street lighting. What better than its own cinema?
Portobello Road, early 1900s
The grand exterior featured brick with a terra cotta facing, ionic pilasters, and the famous tower and dome of galvanised zinc (cut off square at the back so as not to overlap the roof of the auditorium). Beyond the fairground styled box-office booth, the interior had the flavour of an Italian baroque church: pillars, high ceiling, and a proscenium arch (reputedly featuring a map of the world); a place of worship for 564 cinema-lovers.
During the silent era the cinema flourished, apart from an awkward moment during WW1 when the manager, German by birth, was said to be signalling to Zeppelins, leading to the doors being stoned and the poor fellow interned in a camp. The chances are it was foul rumour put about by rival cinema chains.
During WWI the manager was said to be signalling Zeppelins from the roof
The Electric Cinema was retitled the Imperial in 1919, serving an avid local audience with three different double-bills a week, rather than the first-run films of the their grander cousins in the West End. A philosophy of rapidly changing programmes, and alternative choices, that has coloured the cinema’s reputation ever since. During the 20s and 30s the cinema would thrive, and by 1946 was attracting four thousand people a week.
Architects plans, c.1900