As I was lying on my chaise-not-very-lounge, TV remote control in hand, risking a repetitive thumb injury while trying to find something that didn’t insult my intelligence –and my intelligence takes very little to be insulted – I suddenly wondered how people managed in the 1950s when there was just one channel – the BBC.
ITV didn’t arrive in Wales until 1956, a whole year after the rest of the UK.
Both channels closed down at 11pm every night, which sounds positively archaic today.
But it does explain why cinema-going was still very popular in the 50s and 60s, especially with young couples eager to get away from their parents for a few hours.
Film studios, realising TV would eventually become more popular, especially when colour arrived, went all out to make blockbuster movies to be shown on enormous wide screens that 12” black and white tellies couldn’t compete with.
Aside from the ‘sword and sandal’ epics which thrilled millions of movie goers worldwide, musicals were also popular. In particular, “South Pacific” did more business than “Ben-Hur” in London’s West End, where it ran at the Dominion (now a theatre) from 1958 until 1963!
The poor projectionist, had to show the same film twice daily Monday to Saturday and once on Sundays . . . for five years! I don’t suppose his evenings were enchanted.
A cinema record was also set at Cardiff’s 3000-seater Capitol Cinema/Theatre (now sadly demolished) when “The Sound Of Music” ran there from 1965 to 1967. One lady went to watch every performance! After the first year, the management kindly allowed her in for free.
I stress what I’m about to tell you is an unconfirmed rumour from 50 years ago, but apparently, listening to happy nuns and children singing the same songs every day for two years, affected one Capitol cinema employee so badly, he ate a magic mushroom and was found “High on a hill”.
I’m not sure how many weeks he was locked up for . . . “Sixteen, going on seventeen”.
And as he was sent down, he waved and said, “So long. Farewell. Auf Wiedersehen! Adieu!”