Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past History Information Request Plaza Cinema / Bingo Hall - Borough Road

The Plaza organ was a wind pipe one. According to "The Silver Screens of Wirral" it consumed 50,000 cu.ft. of air per hour. A quote from the book:
"In order to create the highest quality sound, the organ pipes were enclosed in two large, sound-proof rooms, and to reach the theatre the sound had to pass through wooden louvres which were controlled from the organ keyboard; when closed, they became a solid wall. The cinema was designed with acoustics in mind."
I've no idea what happened to it.
The main problem for me with Birkenhead history is that I left the area in 1956 and never returned.

According to the Cinema Organ Society Journal, Sept. 1977, parts of it went to collector Ron Curtis's Organ Studio in Bolton and the remainder and the console went to a private collector near Altrincham.
The problem with organs is they can be divided into separate parts and can end up in lots of different installations.

Thanks for the interesting link. Did you notice the Rialto console picture in the site's 'Illuminated Surrounds' section? I believe the Plaza and the Rialto both belonged to the Bedford Cinemas group.

Yes, sorry, I was running out of vocabulary.

Traditional church organs are entirely wind powered (apart from the fan - in some cases even this was a manual pump originally). The keyboard and controls are a mixture of mechanical and pneumatic valves and links.

Cinema organs are a mixture of all sorts but the keyboard and controls tend to be electrical. The plaza had a substantial wind pipe bank but it also had percussion instruments.

Sorry, does anyone have any info on the unit four cinema in king st?

As well as showing films, the Plaza had stage shows. I remember going there as a kid in the late 50s / early 60s to see a pantomime - I think it was Aladdin.
And around 1969, I saw the Scottish pop group Marmalade there, who had had a big hit the previous year with the Beatles song Ob-La-Di, Ob-La Da.
The Plaza was a very impressive place, I think probably second only to the Ritz in Birkenhead as a swanky-looking cinema.

That would be Frank. What miserable bugger he was.

I used to walk past it every day in the mid-60's, going to and from school.
Occasionally the BBC would have a large van parked outside, making recordings for later broadcast on the radio. This often meant that a guest organist was playing - usually quite famous, too.
I also think that there was footage of the organ being played somewhere on the internet. Might have been YouTube, but could also have been a Pathe newsreel.

It sounds extremely unlikely, but I have been told on more than one occasion that Little Richard played there in the late 50s/early 60s... can this be true?

I remember this very well. This was on the bottom of Whitford road my nan used to enjoy many hours in here as it was turned in to a Top Rank bingo hall back in the 80s early 90s.. Always walked pass this to go to my nans who used to live in whitford road..

He played the Tower Ballroom with support from the Beatles in 1962, so not impossible he played elsewhere in the area as well.

Did Liberace ever play at the Plaza or the Tower ballroom? He was ironic, wasn't he. Played the piano all his life-got killed by an organ!!