The Roxy Theatre and the Little Theatre Club, Mombasa

 

The Little Theatre Club came into existence in the late 1940s and still survives!

But before the Little Theatre Club (built in the 1940s) and the Regal and Majestic (built in the 1930s) there was the Roxy Theatre on Kilindini Road.

Amazingly we grew up in Mombasa without knowing about the Roxy Theatre!

It served as both a cinema and theatre!!

Before the Regal and Majestic was built, the Roxy Theatre was a popular venue for amateur theatre productions (Jahazi Vol 8 Issue 1 2019). Roxy and other theatres of the time showed a series of the lightest of almost exclusively British plays and revues, by both professional touring and local amateur groups, punctuated very occasionally by an obligatory Shakespeare or Sheridan production (A History of East African Theatre Volume 2).

The Roxy Theatre was also a cinema! Edward Rodwell indicated that,” the Regal was not the first cinema; there was the Roxy, opposite PWD headquarters in Kilindini road. There the projectors worked by a man turning the handle. The lighting came from two carbons that provided an electric flame rather like an oxy-acetylene burner. The same process could set fire to film.” (from: The Regal, ‘a fast and furious place’... The Standard, Friday September 27, 1985).

More about the fast and furious place later!!

Nairobi Cinemas listings: August 23rd 1983

 

this is very interesting!...

-2 big hits in town...James Bond Octupussy at Kenya Cinema Nairobi and Return of the Jedi at 20th Century Nairobi...

-just remembered ...Advance booking office for Kenya and 20th Century was at 20th Century Cinema!!

-Liberty Cinema and Shan Cinema had switched to English movies (probably as Indian movies attendance had dropped)

-only Embassy Cinema was showing Indian movies

-repeat blockbusters Language of Love was playing at Cameo and Rise and Fall of Idi Amin was playing at the Shan Cinema

-August 23rd 1983 was a weekday Tuesday and yet there were so many afternoon shows!! school holidays

enjoy!!

Nairobi Cinema listings March 16th 1987

 

Norman Cinema, Kampala, Kenya

 

Tivoli Cinema, Mombasa

 

Most baby boomers remember the single screen cinemas in Mombasa well. In the days before VHS, DVD and streaming you could only watch movies in cinemas such as Kenya, Naaz, Regal, Moons and Drive In. Most of these closed as DVD and streaming on the internet took off after 2010. 

I assumed all cinemas were successful until this time. What is probably little known is the Tivoli Cinema which was arguably Mombasa’s first cinema. I came across this old 1920’s flyer (see below) that advertises the Tivoli as a cool, comfortable cinema showing good movies and that is known to taxi drivers! The cinema was obviously targeting well to do patrons.  

A review of the Kenya Gazette unearthed a theatre liquor license application in 1929 for Tivoli cinema on Coronation Street. The Tivoli was bankrupt by 1934 and an application for discharge was made to the Supreme Court of Kenya by a one Mr Manibhai Hathi Bhai Patel doing business as Tivoli Cinema. What a pioneer!