Places of Interest
The Torbay Picture House (now closed) is believed to have been Europe's oldest purpose-built cinema and was built in 1907. Seat 2 Row 2 of the circle was the favourite seat of crime novelist Agatha Christie, who lived in neighbouring Torquay. The cinemas and theatres in her books are all said to be based on the Torbay Picture House. It was also used as a location for the 1984 Donald Sutherland film Ordeal by Innocence and the 1981 film The French Lieutenant's Woman (which was filmed mainly at Lyme Regis in Dorset).
The Royal Bijou Theatre is now demolished, but a blue plaque marking its former location can be found next to the Thomas Cook travel agency in Hyde Road. The theatre was the venue for the premiere of The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan on 30 December 1879. The performance was given at short notice in order to secure the British copyright on the work after problems had arisen with unauthorised performances of HMS Pinafore in the USA.
The department store Rossiters was a centrepiece of the town until it closed in 2009. The store is said to have been the inspiration for the sitcom Are You Being Served?.
From 1889 to 1897 the mathematician Oliver Heaviside lived in Palace Avenue, in the building now occupied by Barclays Bank. A commemorative blue plaque can be seen on the wall. Heaviside is buried in Paignton Cemetery.
Read more about this topic: Paignton
Famous quotes containing the words places and/or interest:
“Speak, ye that ride on white asses, ye that sit in judgment, and walk by the way.
They that are delivered from the noise of archers in the places of
drawing water, there shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the
Lord,”
—Bible: Hebrew Judges (l. V, 10–11)
“Women hock their jewels and their husbands’ insurance policies to acquire an unaccustomed shade in hair or crêpe de chine. Why then is it that when anyone commits anything novel in the arts he should be always greeted by this same peevish howl of pain and surprise? One is led to suspect that the interest people show in these much talked of commodities, painting, music, and writing, cannot be very deep or very genuine when they so wince under an unexpected impact.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)