Edward Phelan with a touring wagon
Memories of early cinema in Newcastle
In the 1890s and early 1900s, when moving pictures were making their first appearance in Australia, the dominant form of mass entertainment was music hall and vaudeville - live variety shows staged in halls and theatres of various sizes, featuring singers, dancers, musicians and novelty acts of many kinds. When entrepreneurs first brought the odd reel of moving picture - along with the complex and mysterious apparatus needed to show them - it might have seemed that they were simply supplying another novelty (albeit a sensational one) to add to music hall programs. Indeed, to start…