Welsh Journals

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THE LITTLE THEATRE, ABERYSTWYTH, 1946-1961 The two public swimming baths built in 1880 which gave Bath Street in Aberystwyth its name both ended their days as cinemas. The gentlemen's bath became a cinema after World War I, and remained so under three names, The Imperial, The Forum and The Celtic, until 1976, when, together with its neighbour, by then the Conway Cinema, it was demol- ished to make way for the Commodore Cinema and the adjacent car park. The former ladies' bath had been floored over between the wars, served as a N. A. A. F.I. for a time in World War II and finished the war as an emergency school for children evacuated from London during the V-weapon attacks of 1944. From 1946 until its conversion to a cinema in 1961 this building was the Little Theatre and until 1959 was occupied for most of the time by a succession of weekly-repertory companies, the Regency Players (1946-50), The Aldwych Players (1951), Jack Bradley's Cambrian Players (1952-4 and 1958-9), Earl Armstrong's company (1955-6), and Charles Denville's company (1957). The almost immediate failure of Bobby Garson's company in 1959 signalled its end as a repertory theatre, but it was occupied by a variety company for a last season in 1960. With the ending of the war in 1945 Aberystwyth began a slow return to its peacetime role as a holiday resort under difficult circumstances. Strict food, clothing and petrol rationing were still in force, fuel and building materials were in short supply and, although the army and the R.A. F. had left, many hotels had not been de-requisitioned and stood empty. The town council turned its attention to the hall in Bath Street which was still in the hands of the Director of Education and, deferring an application by the Sea Cadet Corps to use it as its headquarters, considered the possib- ility of having a smaller hall than King's Hall where, in wet weather, entertainment might be provided by bands, a small orchestra or a concert party. The building was de-requisitioned in January 1946 and the Welsh Board of Health approved its conversion, at an estimated cost of £ 400, using direct labour, to a public hall. The name originally chosen was the Forum Concert Hall. A plan had been prepared by the borough surveyor in October for a conversion to an 'orchestra hall' seating 289 people. This exceedingly economical plan, which seems to have provided more ways of getting out than facilities for performers, would, if followed, have given Aberystwyth a very poor concert hall and a useless theatre. 4 Fortunately, the plan was greatly modified. The stage, at the north end, was to be a raked one, rising from 3 '9" to 4' 23 wide within a brick proscenium arch and 16' deep to the back wall. Since the overall width of the hall was 3 5'6