The Hulme Hippodrome in Manchester, England, is a shuttered Grade II listed building, a proscenium arch theatre with two galleries and a side hall. It was originally known as the Grand Junction Theatre and Floral Hall, and opened on 7 October 1901 on the former main road of Preston Street, Hulme, (now Clopton Walk) and with stage access is from Warwick Street. The Hulme Hippodrome theatre is located in the same building and shares a party wall with its small sibling theatre, The Playhouse. The Hippodrome was a music hall and variety theatre, a repertory theatre in the 1940s, and hired on Sundays for recording BBC programmes with live audiences between 1950 and 1956. In the 1960s and 1970s it was a bingo hall, and from 2003 used by a disgraced church. The theatre has been closed since 2018 and a campaign group exists to bring it back into use as a community resource, where the current owner is seeking permission to build apartments. Its local name in memoirs and records is 'Hulme Hipp'. Its national heritage significance includes being the venue for live recording the first three series of BBC programmes by the comedians Morecambe and Wise.
Architectural details
The Hippodrome and the conjoined smaller Playhouse Theatre in the same building were built at roughly the same time (1901, 1902) and they were part of the circuit of 17 theatres owned by (1848-1931) located mostly in working class urban areas across North West England. The two venues were reportedly connected by an arcade (some researchers question this feature existed, but it has been confirmed in official files though small in scale). The extensive building was Broadhead's company headquarters. Various architectural drawings for the building exist in public archives, not all of which correspond with the eventual constructed form of the building. The architect was Joseph John Alley (1841–1912), however W.H. Broadhead had previously made his money as a builder and is suggested in research to have had a strong influence in the design and construction. The rectangular shape of the auditorium and the seating arranged in straight lines were distinctive to the Broadhead-built theatres. The frontage includes ornamentation with white glazed-brick bandings and pilaster strips, with (now faded) painted lettering. The motto of the Broadhead circuit was, "Quick, Clean, Smart and Bright".
Measurements The property footprint is 1685 square metres (18,135 square feet, 0.4 acres); two and three storeys (15m height) plus a basement. The whole building footprint (both theatres) is 2506 square metres (26,975 square feet). The size of the building means that during heavy rain (8mm/hr) 20,000 litres of water (4,300 gallons) needs to be channelled and drained off the roof space per hour. The external ground measurements here are by wheel and by brick count for height. A recent and accurate 'measured survey' of the property is not known of, and permission to survey inside has been declined.
Location, and 1960s area-wide demolitions and road changes Since around 1965 onwards the Hippodrome has "lost its original relationship to the street network" because of the substantial 'slum' or area clearances in Hulme and across the inner city neighbourhoods of Manchester and Salford generally.
The Hulme Hippodrome frontage was originally on a main shopping street, Preston Street, and the theatre faced a T-junction being an imposing landmark at the end of Clopton Street, a main road that headed north towards the city centre (Ellis Street follows it part-way now). The theatre was served by trams and buses, including the 62 bus route from Heaton Park via Albert Square to Chorlton, and people from north Manchester would reportedly regularly attend the performances, including children from Prestwich travelling independently by this direct bus.
The roads were removed ('stopped up') in the problematic 1960s urban regeneration, around 1965. Clopton Street became Clopton Walk, a footpath going north towards the new Hulme Crescents. In the 1990s urban regeneration phase the Crescents were demolished and Clopton Walk was reduced in length. Outside the frontage of Hulme Hippodrome today are three footpaths and two cul-de-sacs that meet in a small semi-paved square, almost a courtyard, where Preston Street and Clopton Street were sited previously.
Some of the older postcodes used for the building are no longer officially recognised, for example M15 5JJ, M15 5UP and M15 5FT.
Ease of 'get in' In terms of its current relationship to the street network, the Hipp has theatre doors on a remaining eastern boundary cul-de-sac of Warwick Street, M15 5EU. The original tall stage doors, now partially bricked up, are an easy 'get in' and 'get out' for scenery because the pavement (sidewalk) was level with the stage. This meant that the raked seats in the stalls were at street level at the back (off Wilberforce Close) and slanted down to reach basement level at the front row (off Warwick Street).
Stage and backstage Without currently having access, written accounts of the stage dimensions vary slightly. In one account the stage depth is 10m, the width of the proscenium arch is 9m, and the fly tower/ fly loft / grid is 15m. In another account the same measurements would be 13.4m, 10m, 15.2m, and the stage width behind the arch would be 22m.
It is important to remember that WH Broadhead / JJ Alley designed the Hulme Hippodrome stage for drama, it was only five years later that it became used for variety shows. When WH Broadhead built the Royal Hippodrome in Preston a few years later (1905) as a variety theatre from the outset, the following points were made:
"Although nothing was said at the time, the Broadhead policy was to get as many people into the building as possible and things were planned in such a way that, if entertainment did not prove profitable, there could be a fairly easy transfer to manufacture. The [Preston] stage suffered particularly. There were no flies [headroom above the stage to store backdrops etc] and there was a very steep rake [a steeply sloping stage] which, although it was helpful for one-man acts, was very demanding on those wanting to erect a stage set. Repertory companies were later to find this a real problem, as was the lack of any space for the painting of scenery."
Dressing rooms are located directly underneath the stage as a row of cubicle rooms with plumbing, with connecting stairs. Being used for use as a variety theatre or 'music hall' reportedly the stage wings are relatively shallow, and apparently with no scene dock for storage. Transfers between the stage sides were usually done behind the back cloth. There are reports of the stage floor being strengthened from below with steel props when heavy animals were to be included in the programme, and reports of ice shows where the water had to be rapidly frozen in situ on the Sunday for the week ahead.
From an illustrated article, the following captions to photographs add some useful details:
Only two rows of the dress circle are buried underneath the gallery overhang which is supported by pillars. The gallery front has a repetitive theme of musical instruments. The [plasterwork] figure of Pan looks down from the upper corner of the proscenium arch. It looks as though he has heard a good joke from the stage. This view from the corner of the gallery shows good sightlines. Some seats in various parts of the house would have had interference from pillars. Note the square proscenium (which matches the square auditorium). The delicate Rococo plasterwork is shown to good effect. A short staircase gives access to the upper suite of open boxes. There are only open boxes as opposed to separate enclosed ones. (The interiors are very red simply because everything was red!) Being intended for legitimate theatre, the house was equipped with a paint frame which was never taken out. Since the Playhouse next door appears never to have had one, it is possible that any cloths required were painted in the Hippodrome and transferred over. The deep stage, intended for touring drama and musical productions, had over 60 lines which were tied off on cleats of an unusual shape. Note the platform on which the flymen stood to operate the lines. In a shield high above the proscenium opening ... we can be seen the interwoven letters GJT which stood for Grand Junction Theatre. These were redundant when the theatre became the Hippodrome, and Mecca made further attempts to obliterate them with red paint.
Main auditorium
The main auditorium is a proscenium arch theatre with two galleries - named as the Circle (aka Grand Circle) and the Upper Circle (aka Balcony). The ground floor was divided by price, for example in 1944 advertised as Orchestra Stalls, Stalls, and Pit Stalls. (The ground floor of The Playhouse next door was divided as Stalls, and Pit.)
From posters, by the 1950s the original name of the Balcony had been changed to the Upper Circle, where the seats could not be pre-booked. The Balcony / Upper Circle contained the cheapest seats and its patrons had to use a separate entrance which led directly to a carpeted stairway up to the seats. People in the Balcony / Upper Circle could not circulate with other patrons, such as making use of the bar.
The ornate interior plasterwork was by Messrs Alberti, of Oxford Street, Manchester. The initial seating capacity was 3,300 (the most recent figures are 1,350 and 1,200) and unusually for a theatre the audience originally sat on straight benches, except for seven rows of individual tip-up seats in the centre block of the Circle. Benches were preferred by some theatre managers to squeeze in extra paying patrons for the popular shows. Gradually in later years more individual seats were installed in phases to replace the benches. The theatre's three-storey fly-tower is at the east side elevation next to Warwick Street with the backstage doors. Some additional doorways were reportedly added to this elevation around the 1960s to provide additional safety exits. This side also includes a square chimney with white glazed-brick decoration.
From a book listing details of English theatres, written largely in the late 1970s, where the Hipp was awarded 'three stars', the highest category used in this book: