Ray Johnson presents At the Pictures: A Century of Cinemas in the Potteries and Newcastle

Moving Pictures first came to the UK in 1896. People saw early film shows affectionately called the flickers in local town halls and other kinds of premises, and in fairground booths called Bioscopes. We see and hear the last surviving bioscope organ in action - it played in front of Staffordshire showman Pat Collins’s booth.With a history of accidents and fires, the Cinema Act of 1909 said that films could only be shown in custom-built Picture Houses or Cinemas, and George Barber opened the first cinema in the Potteries in October 1909.

Within a couple of years, dozens of small picture houses had opened locally and their numbers grew over the next two decades - the Roxy, Rex/Rio and Picturedrome in Newcastle are featured.

There are interviews with many involved in bringing the magic of the movies into people’s lives: managers, projectionists, usherettes and cinema-goers themselves. A typical cinema organ is played for us by the last of the Odeon organists.

There is a selection of archive film trailers and cinema adverts.This is a combination of history, anecdotes and personal reminiscences plus photographs and rare archive film which brings alive the days when it was a real treat to be "at the pictures".