For much of the 20th century, Portrush had two cinemas running at once — the old Picture House on Main Street, and the newer, purpose-built Majestic, which opened in 1939. Between them they defined a night — or a rowdy Saturday afternoon — out in the town for decades.
The Majestic
The Majestic was built on Main Street, on the site of a former emporium next to the White House, designed by architect and civil engineer James Sheriff Kennedy of Coleraine and Portstewart in a full Art Deco style. It seated 780 (400 in the stalls, 380 in the balcony), reached via a 10-foot-wide terrazzo staircase into a foyer topped by a 20-foot glass-chandeliered dome. Frank Hargy, an Abbey Street, Coleraine interior decorator, handled the decoration throughout; the sound system was the recently-demonstrated Microphonic system by Western Electric, supplied by Kalee Ltd of London, and a fresh-air ventilation system was specifically praised at the time for keeping the auditorium clear of cigarette smoke. Unusually for a cinema, it had its own shop and café on one side of the entrance and a bank on the other — the 140-seat café, run by Mr A. Forto, sold chocolate, ice cream and cigarettes and served meals before and after screenings.
It opened on Easter Monday, 10 April 1939, with Pygmalion, starring Leslie Howard, Wendy Hiller and Wilfrid Lawson; the following week brought This Man Is News with Barry K. Barnes, Valerie Hobson and Alastair Sim. Ticket prices ran from 6d in the stalls up to 2 shillings for the front balcony, with children at half price.
The Majestic was originally owned by local company Majestic Cinema Ltd (directors William L. and Bridget L. James of Glenmanus House, and James Curran of Antrim Road, Belfast), with Norman McLeod as secretary and manager. Curran took a controlling interest in April 1946, and his company Curran Theatres took over fully by the end of 1948. A single surviving ticket-sales record from 13 September 1952 gives a real snapshot of the business: 849 front stalls, 1,077 back stalls, 510 back balcony and 100 front balcony tickets sold that week — 2,536 in total — with Saturday the busiest day, Monday next, and Wednesday by far the quietest. The cinema didn’t open on Sundays at all.
Television-driven decline set in through the 1960s. In 1973 the Majestic applied for, and was granted, a seven-day licence to try to draw weekend visitors — it wasn’t enough, and the cinema closed in 1974.
It reopened in July 1977 as the Playhouse, under the Rank Organisation, with reduced seating alongside a bingo hall, leisure complex and restaurant — a mix that was meant to succeed where the Majestic had failed. It didn’t quite: the Playhouse lasted only until 1982, reopened again in 1987, changed hands more than once (including owner Ken Gibbons and later MovieHouse), and finally closed as a full-time cinema in 2006, though MovieHouse kept using it for summer screenings for a few years after that. Today the building is a restaurant and bar with live music, and a small cinema — on the balcony of the original Majestic — still shows independent films and major sporting events.
The Picture House
Before the Majestic, there was simply “the Picture House” — an older, more ornate cinema, also on Main Street, with its own café. One Portrush local who grew up going there in the 1960s described its interior as “an ornate palace inside… vaguely reminiscent of a medieval cathedral,” built by the local firm of Messrs McAllister. Tickets were bought from a small office just off the street, sold by Eadie Archibald or occasionally Billy Daly; the cinema’s manager and owner was known simply as Mr May. At the time, the wider Coleraine district had five cinemas running between them: two in Coleraine, one in Portstewart, and the Picture House and Majestic here in Portrush.
Saturday matinees at the Picture House were, by every account, a proper test of endurance — for staff and building alike. Hundreds of ten-to-fifteen-year-olds would rush the half-price ninepence seats, and the cinema’s usherettes carried torches, doubling as the front line of crowd control against fighting, shouting, and the odd “torch-wielding trooper” moved on or ejected outright by Mr May himself if things got out of hand. A stretch of carpet near the entrance, nicknamed the “Bouncy Carpet,” was popular enough to trigger its own minor stampedes. A snapped film reel or projector breakdown could reliably turn into a full foot-stamping, apple-stump- throwing protest — genuine mayhem, not just a figure of speech.
Evening programmes followed a set shape: a cartoon, a short (Laurel and Hardy or the Three Stooges), adverts, a “Coming Attractions” reel, and the main feature — sometimes a full double bill with a second “B” picture. Summer brought continuous afternoon showings from 2:30pm, with films run three times before 11pm; The Dam Busters is remembered as one of the more popular summer picks.
Sources
Sourced from “A ‘Majestic’ Addition to Portrush’s Attractions” by Frances Wilson and “When Saturday Afternoon Meant Matinee Mayhem” by Hugh McGrattan, both published in Discover Portrush Magazine.