Broadway Cinema
Opening screen
Guy Walker of Friends of Broadway, pictured right with Andy Mathieson, gave a wonderful illustrated talk on the history of cinema. As audiences grew bigger, the cinemas and screens had to be bigger, leading to the development of 'Cinerama' in the 1950's. This was expensive, since three projectors, and banks of speakers, needed to be manned, and film width increased to 70mm.
However a cheaper technique called 'Cinemascope' could squeeze a film onto 35mm, and this dominated the industry, until the 1970's, when audiences started to go down. The Broadway in Prestwick suffered financially, and became a squash court and amusement arcade. It has not been used as a cinema for 48 years, and Friends of Broadway would love to bring it back into public ownership, as a working film house, with its art deco features restored.
Gregor Purdie gave Guy Walker a well-deserved vote of thanks for a well-researched, very interesting talk. The Friends of Broadway face a huge challenge, but anything is possible with enthusiastic people like Guy on board.
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Weekly Meetings
back This section details the weekly talks at the club and have ranged widely from mindfulness to charity work, health, model making, favourite objects, music and gardening.