Frank Sinatra, Debbie Reynolds, Eddie Fisher, Little Richard, The Beatles, Roy Orbison, the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix have all something in common. Yes, they are, or were, all icons of an age. Yes, they are all in the music industry – but strangely enough, all these visited and sang in the Gala Bingo Hall off Tooting Broadway, from the 1950s to the late 60s!
It is difficult to imagine that the tawdry, tired yet buzzing Tooting town centre was the rendezvous of some of the most prestigious names in the entertainment industry. This Bingo Hall had hidden its secret too well – I had to investigate.
Parking in Sainsbury’s car park – the site of one of Tooting’s manor houses and once the home of the Salvador family – I walked towards the back of what looked like a huge cinema, to a perfunctorily modern entrance block. There I waited to meet the general manager of the Bingo Hall, Mr Jeevahan. The entry clerk waved me through the swing doors, where, at the back of a huge auditorium, a smiling besuited Mr Jeevahan was waiting for me.
Once in, the dimly lit hundreds of bingo stalls, the repetitive drone of the callers and the décor made the outside world just another dream. My genial host took me to the main entrance and foyer on Mitcham Road, proudly showed me the roll call of the hundreds of artistes who had performed here, and invited me to view the premises at my leisure.
The gothic arch mirrors, the false leaded windows, the pilasters with their wrought ornamentations and the sweeping marble staircases leading to the grand circle brought their own little magic to the grand days of the Hall. The dozens of fruit machines, their garish lights and tinging cacophony were dwarfed by the exquisite grandeur of the set.
The heyday of the cinemas was the 1930s. Granada commissioned Fyodor Kommisarzhevsky, a Russian architect, theatre producer, one-time husband of Dame Peggy Ashcroft to create the interiors of its burgeoning cinema empire. Tooting Granada, built in 1931, was his Opus Dei. People went to the cinema, as they do now, to escape the mundaneness of the world. Kommisarzhevsky succeeded in creating an enchantment that remains.
The brass-buttoned blue-uniformed and braided peak capped commissionaires would direct you up the sweeping staircases. These led to a gilded mirrored hall spanning the breadth of the building, arch mirrors standing shoulder to shoulder like a silent guards, their lights leading you to the swing door of the grand circle. Here, the usherettes, in gold silk blouses, blue trousers and pill box hats, blue cloaks and white gloved hands would take you to your seat under the massive brass candelabras that hang from a vast dark gold Gothic coffered ceiling that spans the whole auditorium. This auditorium held over 2400 people three times a day, seven days a week! It boasted a twenty-piece orchestra and a mighty Wurlitzer that stands in the basement, only to rise for concerts, even now, several times a year.
The high gothic interiors of veneered wood encasing murals of musicians are like the baronial halls of the Lord of the Rings, their battlemented chased and intricately carved mythical animals stare majestically above the floors of the auditorium weaving their own magic and ensnaring the onlooker into a world of fantasy.
Dwindling attendance and the television made Granada sell its prize to Gala. The threat of demolition enabled the hall to gain its crown, that of a grade I listing in 1999, ensuring the magic remains.