Cinemas and Cinema-Going in the United Kingdom

Cinema-going was the most popular commercial leisure activity in the first half of the twentieth century. UK cinema attendance grew significantly in the Second World War and peaked in 1946 with 1.6 billion recorded admissions. Though `going to the pictures' remained a popular pastime for the remainder of the forties, the transition from war to peacetime altered citizens' leisure habits. During the fifties, a range of factors including increased affluence, the growth of television ownership, population shifts and the diversification of leisure activities led to rapid declines in attendance. By 1965, admissions had plummeted to 327 million and the cinema held a far more marginal existence in the nation's leisure habits. Cinema attendances fell in all regions, but the speed, nature and extent of this decline varied widely across the United Kingdom. By linking broad national developments to detailed case studies of two similarly-sized industrial cities, Belfast and Sheffield, this book adds nuance and detail to our understanding of regional variations in film exhibition, audience habits and cinema-going experiences during a period of profound social and cultural change. The use of a wide range of quantitative and qualitative sources, such as oral testimony, box-office data, newspapers and trade journals, conveys the diverse nature of the cinema industry and the importance of place as a determinant of cinema attendance. Sam Manning is a postdoctoral researcher on the AHRC European Cinema Audiences project. He has recently published articles in Cultural and Social History and Media History.