Great escape for chaplin audience

For the movie audience it was The Great Escape.

They were in the National Picture Theatre on the night of March 17 1941 watching the Charlie Chaplin movie The Great Dictator when the sirens sounded.

Unable to dash out to nearby shelters because of the severity of the raid they gathered in the foyer.

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An air-borne mine landed right on top of the rear of the building destroying the screen and reducing most of it to rubble. But around 150 people in the foyer remarkably survived unscathed.

Nearly 69 years on the theatre’s grand classical facade is obscured by hoardings on one of the city centre's busiest streets.

Behind it are the stark remains of the foyer, stair turrets and booking office. However the entire auditorium has been lost or reduced to rubble.

The listing citation describes it as of “iconic importance” and “one of the most powerful reminders of one of the most formative periods of the 20th century.”

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During the war Hull was one of the most heavily bombed cities in the UK.

Air raids went on longer in Hull than any other city, even after the opening of the Russian front.

Wartime Home Secretary Herbert Morrison wrote in his memoirs: “In my experience the town that suffered most was Kingston-upon-Hull.”

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