Gaiety Picture House, Peter Street

The Gaiety Picture House (in some circles referred to as the Gaiety Theatre) was in operation between July 1921 and August 1959. Promoted as a mixed purpose venue, attendees could expect a varied program of both film and live entertainments. Frequented and patronised by the upper echelons of polite society, it is remembered as being one of the more upscale offerings in the cinematic landscape of Manchester.

Its interior did away with vulgar gilt and velvets, instead decorated in monochromatic red and white with slick marble columns. Employing a ship as its emblem, the name Gaiety conjures up images of restrained fun for the upper classes and those of a similar sensibility. Its greatest triumph being to secure a record run of 22 weeks for the blockbuster ‘Gone with The Wind’.

Ronald Gow remembers the Gaiety Theatre as the place to be for the well-to-do during the 1920s. As theatres and picturehouses could sometimes be places of ‘immorality’, the owner of the Gaiety took steps to ensure her reputation, and that of the theatre itself, stayed intact.

Image: Gaiety Picture House, Peter Street, Manchester, 1944 Ref: m06443