Liverpool's oldest cinema to reopen for Christmas

Liverpool's oldest cinema has announced it will temporarily reopen after closing during the coronavirus pandemic.

Theatre boss Kevin Fearon, who wants to raise £700,000 to buy the venue, said the Woolton Picture House would open for 12 days before the festive season, when it will show films complete with an interval when viewers can buy ice cream.

He told BBC Radio Merseyside that he and his wife Gillian Miller, who run the Liverpool Royal Court theatre together, thought "it would have been a crime" to not restore the venue, which opened in 1927 but has remained shut since 2020.

"We're getting that ground swell of let's open it again but it needed somebody to say 'let's do it then' so that's what Gill and I have done."

Mr Fearon previously told how he hoped a combination of public donations, fundraising efforts and Heritage Lottery funding would help him to realise his dream of reopening the cinema.

"It is Liverpool's oldest surviving cinema so we don't want to lose that," added Mr Fearon.

Mr Fearon said there had been a lot of demand to reopen the cinema