Folly Farm Wurlitzer
It must be difficult for anyone born after WWII to comprehend just how popular the cinema organ was in those days before television, home computers and mobile phones. Indeed it must be hard to imagine anything like a pipe organ in a modern cinema as being an extremely popular mode of entertainment, often with the organist’s name in letters as big as the stars of the films on cinema frontages.
A trip to the cinema was a weekly ritual, regardless of the film on show and for many it was one of the only affordable luxuries and for a couple of hours gave escapism from the drudgeries of everyday life.
Where did it all begin?
With the advent of talking pictures in the UK during the late 1920s, the cinema organ rose in stature from an accompaniment instrument, with the consoles hidden away, to part of the cinema programme and featured in its own right. The organists became, at the very least, local celebrities, and at most, national stars of radio and records.
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As their popularity grew, they began to appear on radio, sometime three or four times a day and with radio popularity came recording contracts and there were well over 2000 78rpm records issued between 1926 and 1945 in the UK alone. Their tonal variety and versatility allowed a wide spectrum of music to be played, everything from the latest dance numbers to light orchestral music and Edwardian ballads, thereby giving a true programme for every taste in popular music.
As cinemas grew in size, so did the demand for the latest in organs and these had to produce enough sound to fill a cinema with anything from 1500 to 4000 seats, and the demand for ‘fan mail’ photographs grew with them, and many hundreds were sent out to satisfy the curiosity of the listening public, wanting to know what their favourite organists looked like. This was also good publicity for the cinemas themselves, “you’ve heard them on the radio now come and see and hear them in person”.
Ironically, the most popular of UK organists, Reginald Dixon, did not play in the cinemas but had a 40 year career playing for dancing on the Wurlitzer of the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool.
Such was the demand for radio broadcasts that the BBC eventually purchased their own theatre organ in 1936, thus enabling evening broadcasts which were often problematic during film performances in cinemas. Reginald Foort was appointed staff organist was soon voted the most popular radio personality of 1938.
And it wasn’t just the BBC that broadcast cinema organ programmes, commercial stations such as Radio Luxembourg and Radio Normandy also found them high on listeners’ wants lists.
The original BBC Theatre Organ was lost in the London blitz of 1940 and the BBC quickly acquired Reginald Foort’s touring organ as a replacement, firstly on loan and then purchasing it outright. It was sold in 1963.
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Unfortunately, post WWII, tastes were changed, and the cinema organist no longer had the star status previously enjoyed, but many carried on, and thanks to BBC policies, broadcasting continued on an almost daily basis until the late 1960s when, along with most types of ‘light’ music, they were deemed ‘old fashioned’ and removed from the airwaves virtually overnight.
Likewise, few recordings were issued by the major companies post war, with just regular issues from Reginald Dixon throughout the late 1940s and 50s, until the advent of the long playing record.
As Sandy Macpherson said in an interview in 1973 “I could never work out whether the public tired of it or whether it was just taken away from them”.
THE WURLITZER ORGAN
Numbered 2189 in the Wurlitzer opus list, it was shipped from the factory on 6 August 1935 to be installed in the newly built Granada Theatre in Oxford Street Manchester. It was specified by Harold Ramsay, Granada’s ‘Ace Organist of the Air’ as a style 240, 4 manual ‘special’.
However, at the last minute, Granada sold the theatre to Gaumont British and it opened, as the Gaumont, on 21 October 1935 with Hitchcock’s ‘The 39 Steps’ and with 25 year-old Stanley Tudor at the organ, direct from the Gaumont Hammersmith.
Stanley Tudor made his first broadcast from the Gaumont on 23 March 1936, using ‘Singing in the Rain’ as his signature tune, as it was indeed raining, more often than not, on his first day.
He remained as full time resident organist at the Gaumont until August 1953, (apart from five years’ service in the RAF from 1941-46, his place being taken at various times by Thomas Dando, Arthur Esgate, Stuart Barrie and Charles Smitton), when his contract was terminated. He continued to broadcast from the BBC Theatre Organ and moved to the Trocadero Ballroom in Derby.
Stanley Tudor returned to the Gaumont in January 1959 for the run of ‘South Pacific’ remaining until October 1960, returning the Gaumont organ to the air from April 1959 until the final broadcast on 23 May 1968.
He had already signed for a summer season on the Isle of Man in 1959 so Miss Doreen Chadwick was drafted in to deputise, proving to be very popular with Gaumont audiences and began broadcasting the Gaumont organ in December 1959.
After the run of ‘South Pacific’ ended in October 1960 the services of a resident organist were no longer required and the Wurlitzer was little used.
The Gaumont closed its doors for the final time in 1974 but the organ remained in the empty building, enabling it to be recorded on LP by several leading organists and to be featured on TV by Robin Richmond.
After removal from the theatre, various parts of the organ were stored in a variety of locations whist a new home was found. Unfortunately, in 1988, the console, relays, and several other wooden components were lost in a fire and a new, replica console was built. The organ was then installed in Granada’s Studio Tour complex where it was opened in 1992.
After the Tour closed in 1999, the organ was again placed in storage until it was purchased by Paul Kirner and placed on long-term loan to Folly Farm where it was first heard in 2009, played by John Mann.
