budget films while the Coliseum a few yards up the road had the pick of the ABC releases and its later years, the huge drawing power of Cinerama.

From the Bedford's opening in the 30s until the early 60s, the Eglinton Street area was a busy working class community of shops, tenements, pubs and cinemas with much of the business coming from local people.

Redevelopment in the 60s and 70s turned the area into a wilderness and increased competition from city-centre cinemas with multiple screens proved too much and one week after Green's Playhouse, the Bedford screened its final programme, a double bill of Dirty Harry and Klute on July 8th 1973 and reopened on October 12th that year as Mecca bingo.

The main colour scheme of the auditorium was pleasing shades of brown and amber with jazz-moderne motifs decorating the balcony. A "rising sun" feature of coloured glass hung from the ceiling and art deco dummy "organ grilles" flanked the proscenium arch

By November 1934, the Bedford had become part of Green's circuit and appeared in their display advertising. Even with their city-centre Playhouse, they were were struggling to book the top films and felt that the extra seats would give them more leverage with the distributors. Unfortunately this was not the case and the Bedford frequently had to rely on re-runs and low

Three main doors led to the foyer and a centrally-located box office with doors to the stalls on either side and a staircase down to the basement lounge. To the far left and right were the stairs. Although beautifully finished these 'grand staircases' were actually quite modest affairs, constructed from terrazzo featuring a blue and white check pattern, and a wainscot of pink marble grained edged with tiles.

The stairs took patrons to the mezzanine or the balcony seating, this was later altered by Greens when they bought the cinema by removing the first seven rows to include their trademark Golden Divans.