Parc and Dare Hall

The Parc and Dare Theatre stands in the Rhondda Valley village of Treorchy. It began in 1892 as a miners’ library and institute funded by workers who gave a penny from every pound of wages. The building was built to let miners meet, read and socialise, and it soon added a bar and shelves of books. In the early twentieth century a large theatre was added, its outside shaped by the style of Welsh Nonconformist chapels. By 1920 a cinema screen appeared, and in 1930 the first talkie film, The Broadway Melody, drew crowds from miles around. The theatre has survived decades of change. In 1975 it was close to collapse, but the Parc & Dare Workmen’s Institute Committee gave the building to Rhondda Borough Council. Today it hosts plays by local groups such as The Rhondda Theatre Group and concerts by touring acts. Stars like Max Boyce, Ken Dodd and Ray Davies Davies have performed on its stage. In 2007 the theatre’s stage scenes were filmed for Doctor Who episodes called Daleks in Manhattan and Evolution of the Daleks. Inside, the auditorium sits above street level and is reached by stairs and corridors. Two curved balconies curve round the hall, their fronts still covered in original plasterwork. The proscenium arch is richly decorated with plaster fruit and flowers along its length. The building remains an Edwardian proscenium theatre and the tallest structure in Treorchy. Above its entrance once hung a clock, removed in the 1970s and never replaced.