Canvey Rio Cinema & Bingohall

This Art Deco-infused building was once Canvey Island’s cinema. The Rio Cinema at 124 Furtherwick Road was constructed circa 1937, with seating intended for 1,000, and reduced to 588 by 1954. It closed on 29th June 1976 and became a social club, leisure centre and then bingo hall. The cinema was open every day of the week except Wednesdays, and even showed films for children on Saturdays. The building survived both the Second World War and the 1953 floods which ravished Canvey and the other low-lying areas. 

Joyce Humphrey posted her account on the Canvey Community Archive, of working at the cinema aged 13:

“As an usherette, one of my duties was to sell ice-cream in the intervals. During the Saturday afternoon children’s shows it was mayhem! This was due to the shortage of Ice Cream and Sweets during the war. Those dear children used to pull on the straps that hung from my ice cream tray; I was almost strangled at times!  So I resorted to carrying a ruler on my tray and to bring in down on those persistent knuckles! (not very ‘PC’ these days!)“

She then elaborates about her experiences during air raids:

“When I progressed to a projectionist at the cinema I often had to climb onto the flat roof, to put out incendiary bombs then hurry back in time to change the reel of the film so the show could continue (each reel took 20 minutes to run.)“

“When the air raid warning sounded, I had to put a slide up onto the screen, telling the patrons “An air raid is in progress” and to tell them that if they wished to leave, to do so calmly and quietly, but the film would continue as usual. Not many people decided to leave (no doubt not wishing to face the shrapnel and bombs falling outside!)“

The Projector Room

Beyond the Point was able to get a tour of the building in 2015, which included the old projector room, which is now used for storage. Looking through the original projector hole, you can see the dropped ceiling below which is hiding the original curved ceiling from the eyes of the bingo players. Below are our photos from the projector room:

Terry Buchanan also posted his memories on the archive and remembers being in there when it was announced that the war was over:

“Just along from the Haystack was the cinema, and it was here that most of war news was exchanged. It was in this cinema that I first heard that the war had finished. The Chinese whisper became a shout: ‘It’s over, it’s over’. A jubilant audience flooded out onto the high street to join ecstatic promenade, whilst the celluloid Hollywood lovers were still locked in their black and white embrace, completely detached by the flickering light of the projector bulb from momentous point in history.“

In 1976, the last film was shown before the building was converted into a social club, known as the ‘Canvey leisure Centre’. The first game of bingo was played at this time and when the building was sold in 1998 the current owners, Magestic Bingo Clubs, bought the site. For the past few decades it has been owned by Rio Bingo, and fortunately continues this use after a short period of disuse circa 2023.

Sources: Canvey.org, Cinema Treasures (https://cinematreasures.org/theaters/14624)