Everyman Cinema

The building was first opened as the Hampstead Drill Hall and Assembly Rooms in the 1880s. Later it was transformed into a theatre, the Everyman Theatre, which opened in 1920 under the direction of Norman MacDermott with the first British production of Jacinto Benavente's The Bonds of Interest . You Never Can Tell, opened two weeks later and was a success, leading to the performance of more revivals from George Bernard Shaw. Another notable performance is that of Noël Coward's The Vortex, which was first performed there.

The Everyman opened as a cinema on Boxing Day 1933. The opening programme consisted of Rene Clair's Le Million, Turbulent Timber, a Mack Sennett comedy, a Disney cartoon and Paramount News. The Everyman had been bought by a local solicitor, James Fairfax-Jones. “FJ”, as he was known, lived with wife, Tessa, in a sprawling manor house in the secluded Vale of Health. He ran the Everyman as a hobby rather than as a business, hoping that its 302 seats would generate enough money to pay the staff and the overheads as well as his annual treat - attending the Venice Film Festival which he surveyed from the splendour of the Cipriani Hotel. His staff, principally projectionist Tom Robinson and manager Dennis Lloyd, stayed with him for decades. Usherettes were all part-time and were an extraordinary mix - some were wartime refugees, others local au pairs, language students and so on. One woman who worked in the cash desk selling tickets owned the West End furniture store Heals.

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