Hulme Hippodrome

Hulme Hippodrome
Grand Junction Theatre
Second Manchester Repertory Theatre
Exterior of Hulme Hippodrome, 2021
AddressWarwick Street, Hulme
Manchester M15 5EU
United Kingdom
Construction
Opened1901
Demolished
Listed Building – Grade II
Official nameHulme Hippodrome
Designated8 June 1977
Reference no.1283070
ArchitectJ. J. Alley

The Hulme Hippodrome in Manchester, England, is a shuttered Grade II listed building, a proscenium arch theatre with two galleries and a side hall. It was originally known as the Grand Junction Theatre and Floral Hall, and opened on 7 October 1901 on the former main road of Preston Street, Hulme, and stage access is from Warwick Street. The Hulme Hippodrome theatre is located in the same building and shares a party wall with its small sibling theatre, The Playhouse. The Hippodrome was a music hall and variety theatre, a repertory theatre in the 1940s, and hired on Sundays for recording BBC programmes with live audiences between 1950 and 1956. In the 1960s and 1970s it was a bingo hall, and from 2003 used by a disgraced church. The theatre has been closed since 2018 and a campaign group exists to bring it back into use as a community resource, where the current owner is seeking permission to build apartments. Its local name in memoirs and records is 'Hulme Hipp'. Its national heritage significance includes being the venue for live recording the first three series of BBC programmes by Morecambe and Wise comedians.