I have very fond memories of the News Theatre as it was called when I was a kid in the 50s. That was the place to be on a rainy day. I don't think that I have laughed so much since those days. More often than not there was a big fat man in the audience who had a real dirty laugh. This laugh was funny to me on it's own. He could set me off at once by his laugh, he saw the funny side of the cartoons. Today I am addicted to the cartoons from the 40s, 50s and some from the 60s. I have collected all those cartoons on video and DVD and often watch them with my kids and grandkids, we love them to bits, they are so funny.

I left school at 14 and spent two weeks working at Allan and West. I then moved on to the Princes News Theatre, where I became a projectionist, until at 18. I was called up for national service in the RAF.

I was a projectionist here in the early sixties.
I can't remember the head projectionist's name but we always called him chief. The other two projectionists were George and Cam [Mac spelled backwards].
The highlight of the night sometimes [when the chief wasn't on of course] was to wind up the houselights without switching them on. Then just as the program was about to end we would hit the switch and the lights would come blazing on without any warning.
I can tell you there were some very surprised faces.
Happy days.

My mum used to take me to this cinema. They used to show a lot of news films but the cartoons were my faves. Afterwards we would go to the Lyons Corner House at the bottom of St. James's Street. Happy days.

Sometime in the very early 1970s as the BFT they had a wonderful full day showing of Buster Keaton silents complete with a pianist playing the original scores. Loved it and I do miss the BFT. It ran on a shoestring but had excellent and imaginative programmes.

My father Harry Allchin managed the News theatre in the late 1940s; previously he had managed the Grand Theatre in North Road. All my friends loved to be able to come along with me free to the the Princes and sometimes we would sit in there for hours watching the same show over and over again. Superman was the favourite and the three stooges the least popular. On my visits to Brighton I have never been able to place the building but now thanks to this web site I will know where it is.

Love the picture, especially as it shows two landmarks that I hope are still there (well they were a few years ago). Whenever I return to Brighton I always look for the Hatter's advertisement painted on the side of the wall and the terracotta gryphen on the apex of the peg tile roof two doors down from where the cinema once was.

I sometimes cut classes at the Tech to go to the Princes News Theatre in the early 1950s. I loved to laugh at the corny space adventure films where you could see the strings holding up the model - supposedly real space ships. Also the message on the screen, "would Mr. R. Jones please go to the box office", repeated at intervals twice, then finally a monkey on the screen turned to the camera and said, with a little cartooned help with lip movements, "Hey, Jonesy, why don't you go to the box office?" I wondered how often members of the Jones family fell for this, and what the box office personnel dealt with it!

I had many a happy afternoon in there when my dad would take me, in the late 50s. Of course the cartoons were most of it but also in those pre-TV days (in our house anyway) you could see Pathe News. I remember seeing footage of the Cup Final and the Grand National, and no doubt much more serious things that went over my head. Happy days!

I remember this theatre with such fondness. I used to take my younger brother and myself to watch the cartoons and other items showing. Somehow, it seems we stayed for hours but I'm sure it wasn't. It was all part of that wonderful time in the 60s. What happy memories.

Some kids went to the ABC Granada in Hove for Saturday morning club - I went to the Prince's. Even today, when I hear the opening music of a Pathe News on the tv, the memories of the Prince's flood back.... and the voice of the 1950s David de Keyser commentating on Pathe Pictorials.. wonderful! BUT, folks, no one has commented on the thing that I wish I could reconstruct... you bought your ticket at the passimeter, the smart commissionaire (always cheery) would open the door from the foyer for you and, as commented previously, you would walk down the slope to either the first or second pair of double doors to the auditorium.... what I want to reconstruct is the SMELL of that corridor. I think it was a combination of polish, cigarette smoke and old fabric, it was pungent but it was by no means unpleasant. It was HOWEVER unique! And very Prince's...

I made a comment three years ago about the terracotta griffin on the apex of the roof of a shop a few doors down. It can clearly be seen in the above photograph, but sadly it is no longer there and no one seems to know what happened to it. Fortunately I took a photo of it before it went.