I was privileged recently to join a Cinema Theatre Association visit to Bradford Live, the newly-restored New Victoria Cinema (1930), which survived brutal alterations, persistent neglect and threats of demolition until it was rescued and impressively restored as a “world-class” concert venue.

It was, and is, a magnificent building.  It opened on September 22nd 1930 with a spectacular ceremony that included the film Rookery Nook and much else.  Its size ensured its physical and commercial survival through vicissitudes that have blown away many of its contemporaries.

It was designed by a Bradford architect, William Illingworth (1875-1955), and at its opening it was claimed to be the third largest cinema in England and the largest outside London. 

Two of its London rivals of greater size, the Davis Theatre, Croydon (opened December 18th 1928;  3,925 seats) and the Trocadero, Elephant & Castle (opened December 22nd 1930; 3,500 seats) have both gone. 

Comparisons, as the schoolboy said, are odorous.  There were other 1930s cinemas with capacity for around four thousand patrons, some of which survive such as the Granada Cinema, Tooting (opened September 7th 1931;  slightly less than 4,000 seats; currently a bingo club) and the Gaumont State Theatre, Kilburn (opened December 20th 1937;  4,004 seats;  now a church).

William Illingworth provided Bradford with a vast 3,318-seat auditorium with a Wurlitzer organ, facing a stage 70ft wide × 45ft deep, alongside a ballroom, a 200-cover restaurant and a tea-room café.  The auditorium decoration was dignified Italian Renaissance, while the comfortable, stylish front-of-house spaces included Art Deco features and warm, adventurous colour schemes.

Built for Provincial & Cinematograph Theatres, it was operated successively by the Gaumont and Odeon chains and prospered until the 1960s.  In particular, its stage and audience capacity meant that every significant rock and pop performer, excepting only Elvis Presley, appeared in Bradford, from Bill Haley and the Comets and Buddy Holly to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

Film and live performances in the auditorium ceased in 1968 – Rio Conchos and Tom Jones were the last shows.

The conversion to twin screens and bingo in 1968 was ferocious.  The structure was sufficiently robust and there was so much space that the two cinemas were built on the circle and gallery, and the stalls became a huge bingo club.  Most of Illingworth’s plaster decoration was ripped out, though a segment of the balcony plasterwork remained hidden in a void for decades.  The ballroom – redundant for twenty years – became a third screen in 1988.  Schemes to subdivide the building further in 1991 and 1994 came to nothing.

In July 2000 Odeon opened a multiplex at Thornbury, where 3,300 people (almost the original capacity of the New Victoria) could choose from sixteen different movies at any particular time of day.  The game was up for the Odeon cinemas in Bradford and Leeds.

As the Odeon Bradford gradually deteriorated, local people got together to oppose its destruction.  An exceptional campaigner, Norman Littlewood, with his wife Julie, founded the Bradford Odeon Rescue Group (BORG) in 2003.  Its most spectacular demonstration was the occasion in 2007 when a thousand people joined hands and hugged the Odeon.

Schemes to demolish and redevelop came and went until, partly through the efforts of urban explorers, it became apparent that significant amounts of original decorative features survived behind the 1968 alterations.

There’s an extensive exploration of the building showing its condition in 2014 at BRADFORD ODEON STRIPPING OUT ~ AUTUMN 2014, which is narrated by Mark Nicholson, author of the compendious history of the place, The People’s Palace:  the story of Bradford’s New Vic (Bradford Live 2022).

The building passed through the hands of a succession of entities until Bradford Live bought it from the city council for £1, and spent rather more than that – £50.5 million – on its transformation.

It’s a palimpsest – a document that’s been repeatedly erased and rewritten.  Under the aegis of the Aedas Arts Team, William Illingworth’s surviving work has been restored and replicated, particularly in the ballroom and restaurant.  Elsewhere the bare structure of two million bricks and one hundred tons of steel indicates the magnificence of the architect’s engineering:  https://cdn.rt.emap.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2018/12/28135511/20181203_aat_designandaccessstatementpart1.pdf.

It will be performance, particularly music, that makes this place pay.  The days when three thousand people will queue up to see the same movie at the same time are gone.

The crowded streets that hemmed in the New Victoria in 1930 have been opened out to create Centenary Square, so that Bradford Live sits alongside the Alhambra Theatre and the National Science & Media Museum, within a few minutes’ walk of St George’s Hall and on the doorstep of the University of Bradford campus.

Bradford is City of Culture in 2025, and now that Trafalgar Entertainment has taken on the role of operator it’s clear that it will contribute much to the culture of the city for years to come:  Show will go on as operator revealed for Bradford Live venue | TheBusinessDesk.com.

Bradford Live does not appear on Bradford’s list of listed buildings.