The Electric, the UK's oldest working cinema, shuts its doors

The Electric on Station Street, the oldest working cinema in the country, has closed its doors for the foreseeable future.

The cinema announced on 29 February that it was "shutting for the foreseeable future". It has been showing films in Birmingham city centre since 1909.

Birmingham's first cinema

The Electric, originally called the Electric Theatre, opened on the bank holiday of 27 December 1909 as Birmingham's first film theatre. It was designed by Bertie Crewe, one of the leading theatre architects of the day, whose plans are now held in the archives of the Library of Birmingham.

A newspaper report at the time described a shop in Station Street transformed into "a cosy and attractive entertainment hall with a capacity of 376, in red plush tip-up seats", showing "brilliantly steady pictures" on the latest Edison machines. It was estimated that more than two thousand people paid for admission on the opening day, with silent films accompanied by a piano.

The cinema's influence spread beyond the city. The Electric Cinema in Notting Hill, London, which opened in 1910, took its name from the Birmingham original.

Many lives

Over the following century the cinema changed its name several times, becoming The Select in the 1920s, before returning to The Electric in October 1993.

It closed in December 2003 and was bought by local film director and producer Tom Lawes, who carried out extensive renovations to restore its 1930s Art Deco style. It reopened in December 2004 with two screens, both able to show digital films and one also able to project 35mm film.

The cinema closed again at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, when most of its staff were made redundant, and reopened under new ownership in January 2022.

An uncertain future

No date has been given for any reopening. The building's long history, and its place as one of the oldest cinemas in the world still showing films until this week, mean its future will be closely watched by film fans and heritage campaigners.

Station Street, which is also home to the Crown pub where Black Sabbath played their first concert and the Old Rep theatre, has long been one of the city centre's most characterful corners, and the loss of its cinema leaves a gap in the street's life.

The closure brings to an end, for now, more than 114 years of film on the site. The cinema has closed and reopened several times before, most recently in 2022.

At its opening, the cinema's projection room was described as "one of the finest in the city".