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12. EARLY ENTERTAINMENT VENUES: by Gerry Kennedy

Extracts from the recollections and memoirs of Frank Hannan (printed with his kind permission)

THE CYCLORAMA:

One of Melbourne's major early entertainments was the Cyclorama, sited between St. Vincents Public Hospital
and where the present Private Hospital stands in Victoria St. Fitzroy. The Cyclorama was a large, tall twelve
sided "circular" building erected in 1888 for the specific purpose of displaying, on painted canvas (some four
hundred feet long by fifty feet high) various epics. The original one was "The Battle of Waterloo" and the latest
one I saw as a child was the "City of Jerusalem.

To view the display, one entered via a tunnel which led up stairs to a large raised platform. From there the vast
canvas was viewed at a radial distance of some sixty feet. The space between the viewing platform and the
canvas covered walls was filled with turf, bush, trees or whatever, so arranged as to blend in with the painted
canvas behind it, thus creating a realistic effect to the whole picture.

This initial Cyclorama venture was so successful that the promoters soon opened a second, smaller one in a lane
opposite the rear of Scots Church; they also imported several spectaculars from the U.S.A. of which I recall the
popular two: "The Eureka Stockade" and "The Siege of Paris".

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THE EMPIRE OPEN AIR & THEATRE:

We used to go to the "flicks" at the Empire Theatre in Sydney Rd., Brunswick, immediately opposite St.
Ambrose's Church. In the pre- First Wor1d War days, it was an open air theatre; the seating was "stalls" only,
canvas chairs for the front one-third and, for the remainder, un-backed wooden benches.

In the late 1920's a modern theatre, including a dress circle, took over from its open air forerunner- gone were
the "flicks"! It was quite palatial, just the place for the young fellows of Brunswick to take their "best gins" out
to on Saturday nights.

In addition to this original open air Empire picture theatre, there was a similar one, Wests Pictures just over
Princes Bridge, close to the site of the present Concert Hall. Hoyts later acquired this site and soon after built
a modern cinema in its stead.