welcome to our new series exploring the history of Winter Gardens in Blackpool
in this video we will be exploring the amazing Blackpool Opera House within the complex
showing you all the hidden areas and the amazing history this massive building has to offer the
Blackpool opera house opened originally in 1889 as part of the winter gardens complex
it has been rebuilt twice in its history enlarged in 1910 and then completely rebuilt in 1939
it's now a grade 2 listed building and one of the largest theatre's in Europe
with a capacity of 2813 people over three levels the original building that opened in 1889
and called her majesty's opera house was designed by architect frank matcham
who also designed the nearby grand theatre and the famous Blackpool tower ballroom it had a capacity
of 2500 but this was considered insufficient at the time enlarged in 1910 it was again considered
insufficient the final building which is what you see today was built in 1939 it was a complete
rebuild of the stage and auditorium area although a few parts of the old buildings remain as part of
the complex as you will see in this video let's start our explore with the enormous auditorium
so here we are studying the auditorium of the opera house quite a few thousand people in here
in fact just short of 3 000 is the capacity of this theatre or the opera house as it's known
and here's the stage area just behind me how many seats did you say 1,401. And he just said
that it actually eclipses many other theatre's around the country just on the stalls alone
and you can see what i mean it is so wide i have been in here i sat down there watching peter kay
i think it was 2006 something like that yeah absolutely massive and then obviously you've
got the other levels which we'll see in a minute up there now they're just telling me they've done
a lot of renovation works over the closed period during the pandemic that we don't talk about
all this has been repainted back to its original colours of what it used to be in the early days
now those of you that have been in here before will remember the old colour scheme
in my opinion this is much better definitely in keeping with the original vision
this was rebuilt in the 1930s completely and a lot bigger than the original one and all
done in the art deco style as you can see from a lot of the fixtures and fittings a lot of them
have been kept as well which is amazing you can see by the light fittings they're very art deco
so here we are stood on the circle again you can see the stalls down there
and a massive stage look at that huge ventilation shaft there
and let's have a look around
so he was saying about the blue seats they used for the royal box and the royal variety
they used these seats here and they actually separated the area off so she had her own
royal box here and then the original one they had a royal box just over there
that was constructed just for the royal variety performance so again we've got the original seat
frames on these seats in the theatre obviously the upholstery has been changed over the years but
the original wooden seats you can see by the bottoms they're very art deco looking
so we've just reached the top floor in the theatre so you've got the what i
would call in the gods up here but yeah you guys still get an amazing view here
they were telling me when we were on the stage they had a brand new cinema screen installed which
costs quite a bit of money just at the back there so behind the safety screen is a brand new cinema
screen so they can show films from here again did you say it was a 3d projector yep 3d and
full surround sound in the theatre brilliant it's a 3d and full surround sound so all up to date now
but you can see the projection room up there we just i think we're going to head up there now
oh fantastic so you've got the brand new 3d projector here and look at the size of that
it's not what you get in your house is it it's absolutely massive i mean that would have cost
quite a lot and then you've got these are the old 1930s projectors you say so look how original
these machines are they look brilliant don't they and then you've obviously got your spotlights here
which they use in performances today one on either end what is this it's another light
yeah it looks like another original 1930s like this i mean look at the detail on that levers
everywhere so this would have been some kind of a stage light from up here and yeah you've got
your massive spots here which are all obviously modern let's just look at the machinery in here
so here's the original projectors from the 1930s just that's nearly 100 years old
look at the size of the lenses on them
and the original cork floor here
and you've got your little trapdoors there that you lift
and you can see straight into the auditorium so this room here obviously not used anymore
it's actually the original cutting room for the film reels and he was just saying they get them
from the studios and they come in here and cut them and glue them together with all the uh get
that silly film cement and then uh obviously put their adverts in and things like that i don't know
if they did that then i think there's stuff yeah they're used for the news roles before the velvets
newsreels yeah and then stick it on the projector outside got all this original machinery down here
all for different you've got your film cans there look the original film reels storage
cans because obviously film was quite flammable so they kept it in these containers to make sure
it was safer and some original film there look at that what does that say on it someday next
and then a old storage system here to put the filters in
how great is all this it's so vintage
wow yeah this room is off outbound really it's nice to see inside the old quirky
areas brilliant again the old power system for the lighting and the stage the old fuse is here
and you can see the footlight centre foot light button
that's amazing and look how vintage they are that feels like a ceramic though
and the old wheels here look and then the older would have been your old levers here
yeah yeah it's just amazing all this is still here not used but it's still here
you can see in this room here where the original bar would have been
you can clearly see that there if you're saying the original art deco floor look at
the fancy artwork on that and it's still in good nick that's what we like to see
yeah they don't use this anymore it's just a storage area now but who knows in future one day
so we stood in this side area just outside the opera house and the upper levels and you can see
now we've just come out into a corridor and you can see through these beautiful windows we're
actually inside the main dome at the entrance to winter gardens you can just see the dome roof up
there behind me yeah how amazing is that and you've got the more common wise statue there
so in case you're not aware this as far as I'm aware it was built as a fire escape wasn't it
modern fire escape apparently that's where that's what i read they said that this because obviously
this section here protrudes into the actual dome and it didn't used to exist but due to
them building the modern opera house i say modern now but the modern opera house at the time they
had to factor in modern health and safety because they use a lot of the original layout they had to
put in this fire escape which slightly encroached into the dome here so that's why if you look down
from the bottom up this is the only section that pops out so we're at the circle level in the opera
house and this room here which is at the front of the building is the original entrance foyer
for the first and second we think incarnation of the opera house the ones that were demolished when
they rebuilt the new one that you see today now you can just see here we've got a balcony level
there and then this level is not the ground level so you would have come in on the level
below where the stalls are and a grand staircase swept up and you could get to the various levels
in the theatre from in here like you do today but it's a different layout and a different foyer now
again predates the actual opera house so obviously that's all art deco this is Victorian period
you can tell by the fancy pillars up here not much art deco apart from the fittings which
have obviously been changed to art deco just there so these chairs are the original chairs
as you can see bwc Blackpool winter gardens company and uh yeah i said i found them on EBay
and they bought them back and they keep buying more as well which is brilliant
but look at this room this is this is obviously a bar area an original 1939 bar is it still used
today yeah brilliant so still use this as a bar area obviously for your interval drinks and things
brilliant look at the old vintage art deco filters air filters here now these are across the whole
theatre you can see them everywhere but this design here was just saying it's been replicated
downstairs onto some window panels did you say yeah so we renovated the emperor's grill which was
once a cafe stage door cafe and the architects at the time when they were revitalized in these rooms
took things like these features and put them into the new style buildings
fantastic and just here is what they call the carriage room which again would have been
in the 1920s 30s where people would have come to relax and rest
before a show i mean and probably have a cigar as they did back then look at the old seat in here
or velvet what is it velvet what is that velvet and then look at that your wood panels again
all these original pieces of art on the wall i've just noticed this look at the old wardrobe look
at that it's so vintage it's unreal look at that the old art deco wardrobe i'm sure my grandma had
something like that yeah the wood panelling this again the ceilings but he said that when they did
the role variety here in 2009 this is where the queen came to relax and to use this as her room
the royal variety performance has been staged at the Blackpool opera house on three separate
occasions its first been in 1955 and it was the first time the royal variety had ever
been hosted outside of London now let's head backstage and see what's hidden behind there
so here we are in the opera house theatre and I'm currently stood on the stage now this
stage is believed to be the largest or the widest stage and one of the highest as well
but it's also the second largest in the world behind the Paris opera house and just behind
the safety curtain here is the actual auditorium now i have been to see shows
here before i never thought that one day I'd be stood on that stage but i have sat out there
yeah the sheer scale of it in here is just absolutely it's massive just look up there
so we're just making our way down underneath the opera house stage
so this is what you would have as backstage area all the dressing rooms etc
now these it was just saying that the large dressing rooms used the
bigger casts a lot of the children's shows and things to do in here
you can see some of the stars up there French and Saunders Freddie Starr so what you're seeing here
is the lift mechanisms you can see the weights there the counterweights this is for the trapdoors
up on the stage there so they can lift the equipment up to the stage level from the back here
very fascinating and all of this looks very old and original
you can just see how deep that pit is down there as well
and there you go with another lift system there
so apparently this was installed for Frank Sinatra it's rumoured anyway
and uh yeah tap his foot the microphone would pop out from the stage and just this thing here
with a little motor on it a small lift mechanism and as you can see little trap door at the top
where the mic would have gone through the mag stand
so this is uh what is known as the orchestra pit right at the front of the stage you can see the
stage just above us there and he said this can be removed if they want to use this pit obviously
all right here we go something very special hidden in this cupboard here
and you'll all recognize it just from the panel at the side it's one of the original Wurlitzers
one of two at winter gardens they've got one in the ballroom as well and then obviously this one
in the opera house now if you did watch the royal variety performance filmed here in 2009 was it yes
peter k came out of the floor on the wall it's uh you can see the uh some of the mechanisms there
you can see the cables here so this is an actual uh riser platform here so the whole where it's
uh we'll just lift out the floor straight up to the stage look how amazing that is
i wouldn't know where to start with one of them for all the pedals down there yeah we've just
seen this uh underneath the stage it looks musical it's definitely got notes on there
um could be part of the Wurlitzer so we're not sure what that is actually
any ideas drop it in the comments below you will know better than we do
so he was just saying that the stage or underneath the stage here does go down another level so we're
just coming up from the stage level again heading upstairs above the stage this time
so here we have another dressing room so like I'm saying these
are above the stage area which is down there nice bathroom there
yes there's plenty of room for big casts anyway Bob Monkhouse legend Ken Dodd
Tommy Cooper another dressing room
exactly what you would need a nice little surface to rest
shower yeah brilliant i won't see all 17 mind
see i love these uh little quirky doors here a little door on the staircase and it says the
flying department only backstage would you see that unless you're a superman so we're back
down on the stage level now and there that floor above me there that you can just see is where
the dressing rooms were that we just went up to so again 17 dressing rooms up there plenty more
downstairs and then a huge backstage area here so we've got a name board here the Blackpool opera
house commemorative role of honour which features all the names of the acts over the years that are
performed at the opera house but they were just telling me due to the amount of people that have
actually been here they had to limit down the amount of people that could appear on this list
so they only included people that were British at the time so people like frank sinatra won't
appear on here so there's a lot more than what you've seen and here's the new one
you can just see there Peter Kay Gary Barlow Jason Manford and the royal variety
obviously not a lot going on in the last couple of years as we know we will be back
at the winter gardens very soon to explore more of this amazing building thanks for watching