Bingley Arts Centre (home of Bingley Little Theatre)

Bingley Little Theatre opened on the 26 April 1948 in the Victoria Hall on Waddington Street owned by the Independent Order of Oddfellows. The theatre had around 150 seats. Bingley Urban District Council (BUDC) built and opened Bingley Arts Centre in 1974 and compulsorily purchased Victoria Hall for demolition in 1975. In the same year Bingley Little Theatre was relocated into the existing St John's Ambulance Hall at the rear of the new Arts Centre and both buildings were connected. Bingley Little Theatre’s facilities included a bar, studio, rehearsal room, production workshops, and props and wardrobe stores. A roller shutter on the back wall of the Arts Centre stage also enabled sets to be easily moved between the stage and Bingley Little Theatre’s production workshops located on the opposite side of the connecting backstage corridor. Bingley Little Theatre had a licence to use the Arts Centre for its amateur productions for sixteen weeks each year in addition to a 21 year lease of its own building. The bar and other areas were badly damaged during a fire on the 13 May 1990 but were rebuilt and Bingley Little Theatre reopened its premises in October 1991. In 1994 Bingley Little Theatre was granted a 15 year lease. In 2012 Bradford Council (the successor body to BUDC) reviewed its operation of the Arts Centre and granted a 99 year lease of Bingley Arts Centre to Bingley Little Theatre, which now manages the whole complex. It actively promotes use of the building which is hired by local drama, operatic, and dance groups, community organisations, bands and comedians. The Arts Centre has a spacious ground floor bar/seating area which leads into a 359 seat auditorium. The wall between the two spaces can be folded back and the single steeply raked tier of seating can retract to form a flat hall space of 16m x 10m. The auditorium is plain with a utilitarian rectangular proscenium arch and 2m deep forestage, which can also be removed to form an orchestra pit. New lighting and sound systems have recently been installed along with a fully automated stage revolve. Two large dressing rooms are located on the ground floor to stage left. A further two dressing rooms are provided on the first floor. As well as its drama, music, dance and comedy programme other uses include trade fairs, dances and wedding receptions.