The Tivoli Theatre Wimborne

On our recent trip home to the south coast I finally got to visit the beautiful Tivoli Theatre. My Dad works in a lovely little town called Wimborne and one of it's main attractions is the Tivoli.

So whilst visiting I dragged Craig along to see an admittedly disapointing film (we were a week to early to watch The Dark Knight, gutted) for the worthy reward of finally getting to see inside this beautiful Art Deco time warp.



As you can see from this plaque the theatre came under threat of demolition in 1979. Thanks to a lengthy campaign to save the building restoration began in the 1990's managed soley by volunteers!

Hello lovely box office lady! All the staff at the Tivoli are also volunteers, even when it comes to the costume and set design for the theatre productions.



 One of the kind volunteers spent a lot of time with us showing around and talking us through the history of how they saved it from demolition and ruin.

I couldn't get over this cute sweet stand, with an equally sweet usherette to serve us, she was camera shy.

Original Film posters from the cinema's heyday. 

When they re- upolstered all the chairs they matched the fabric exactly to the original 1930's design.

We sat up on the balcony and watched the film in one of the original 'couples seats'. 

     
There are a few original cinema's like this along the south coast close to where I grew up. I am planning to eventually take trips to all of them so I can share them with you. It's really heart warming that places like this do still exist, especially as there was once a time when many of the original Art Deco and Edwardian theatres where being torn down to make way for flats.

Hat's off to all those amazing volunteers for saving such a wonderful place, and a special thanks to the ones who showed us such a good time and for letting me take pictures.

If you would like to visit the Tivoli theatre or would like to read more about it's history, you can visit the website here.