The Riverside Studios has had a long and enterprising history. Starting life as an industrial building in the 1800s, it was bought by the Triumph Film Company in 1933, serving as a film studio until 1954 when the BBC moved in and made Riverside its television station hub. ‘Top of The Pops’ and ‘Dr Who’ were famously filmed here, together with ‘Hancock’s Half Hour’ and ‘Playschool’. It wasn’t until 1975 that Riverside Studios received council funding to become a community arts centre and, with playwright Peter Gill at the helm, it launched as a new home for the performing arts. Since then, Riverside has evolved and grown providing visitors with an often ambitious theatre, art, cinema and education programme, as well as a studio space for television companies and a lively bar-cum-restaurant.
