Bob Wallis rescues art deco Piccadilly (Forum) cinema in North Adelaide, with a state heritage listing in 1986

The curved main staircase of the state-heritage-listed Piccadilly cinema, in O'Connell Street, North Adelaide, was a focal point of its art deco design. An image of the ancient Roman forum, a leftover from its previous name change to the Forum, covered a mural of the London's Piccadilly Circus.
Images by Sia Duff, courtesy The Adelaide Review

Bob Wallis of the South Australian cinema group managed to save the art deco Piccadilly theatre in O’Connell Street, North Adelaide, from possible demolition by taking it over in 1983. He refurbished it as a multi-screen complex that reopened in 1990 with its name changed from the Forum to its original Piccadilly.

The Piccadilly was the last built for Dan Clifford, prominent promoter of cinemas and the film industry in South Australia. Born in Adelaide in 1887, Clifford’s career included buying the Wondergraph network of cinemas and being president of the Motion Picture Exhibitors 1932-35. When he died in 1942, Clifford’s Star Circuit was 20 suburban and country cinemas.

Opened in 1940 at the outbreak of World War II, the Piccadilly was built at the tail end of a boom era for suburban filmgoing as “the most modern theatre in the southern hemisphere”.

Designed by Adelaide architects firm Jack Evans, Greg Bruer and James Hall (who also did West’s Theatre, Hindley Street, Adelaide city), with Sydney’s Gus Crick and Bruce Furse, the £26,000 theatre’s art deco style boasted striking arrowhead and porthole jazz-style windows lining its staircase and lounge, with frosted amber glass complemented by concealed coloured neon lighting. The News in Adelaide called it “a warm-toned building of ultra-modern construction (that) has the latest in sound, lighting and ventilation equipment and its up-to-date interior arrangements include attractive powder bars for women patrons on both the ground and first floors”. R.J. Nurse of Norwood was the builder.

One the great believers in the Piccadilly was Bob Parr who left his job as fitter and turner at General Motors-Holden’s car plant to get into cinema work there full time. In the mid 1960s, Parr and then-manager Clem Williams faced a battle to lure audiences back to suburban cinemas that received the latest films eight weeks after city theatres, along with the competition from television. 

The Piccadilly also had to deal with a change of ownership to the Hoyts chain.  During that time, the name was changed to the Forum, signalled by a large picture of ancient Rome was nailed over the previous Piccadilly Circus mural that had been designed by the head of the South Australian School of Arts, F. Millward Grey.

Bob Parr later join the Wallis cinema group and Bob Wallis’s commitment to reviving the Piccadilly when he took it over in 1983. The building was state heritage listed three years later.