'Picture Shows': The Early British Film Industry in Walthamstow
The unlikely setting of the East London suburb of Walthamstow was a centre for the infant British cinema industry at the turn of the century. Margaret O'Brien and Julia Holland chart its course, aided by interviews with and recollections of local people, many of whom were involved as 'extras' in the early silent films.
The first public picture film show in Britain was in 1896, when the Lumiere Brothers projected their strips of film at Regent Street Polytechnic, The novel impact of this event was the life-like projection and the size of the screen. As The Times reported in 1896:
The spectator no longer gazes through a narrow aperture at the changing pictures but has them presented to him full size on a large screen.
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