Photos:  Scott Hukins [www.scotthukins.co.uk]

The latest improvement to the Abbeydale Picture House was revealed at the most recent film-revival night on Saturday March 26th. The back of the stalls has been converted to a superb café-bar with a flat timber floor and dado panelling in keeping with the architecture, and painted in a relaxing cream and beige scheme which highlights the plasterwork and echoes the original 1920 decoration. It’s an unobtrusive addition to the auditorium and a welcome asset to help the building once more earn its keep. The film-night showed comedy programmes by two of the greatest figures in silent cinema, Buster Keaton in One Week (1920) and The Goat (1921) and the most famous of Harold Lloyd’s many films, Safety Last! (1923), with a live piano accompaniment by the immensely talented Darius Battiwalla [http://www.dariusbattiwalla.com/Darius_Battiwalla/Home.html]. The Abbeydale Picture House was sold to the True North Brew Company in January 2025, and the basement reopened as a bar named the Abbeydale Ballroom in the following September. Mike Higginbottom’s book, The Abbeydale Picture House:  Sheffield’s premier suburban cinema, has 56 A5 pages in full colour. To see sample pages, please click here. To purchase, please click here, or send a cheque for £10.00 per copy payable to Mike Higginbottom at 63 Vivian Road, Sheffield, S5 6WJ. Contact:  0114-242-0951 or 07946-650672 or mike@mikehigginbottominterestingtimes.co.uk