The Parc and Dare Hall is a former Miners' institute

Miners' institute

Miners' institutes, sometimes known as Workingmen's institute, Mine Workers' institute, or Miners' Welfare Hall are large institutional buildings that were typically built during the height of the industrial period as a meeting and educational venue...

 but now serves as a large entertainment venue in the village

Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 of Treorchy

Treorchy

Treorchy is a village, although it used to be and still has characteristics of a town, in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales, lying in the Rhondda Fawr valley...

, in the Rhondda

Rhondda

Rhondda , or the Rhondda Valley , is a former coal mining valley in Wales, formerly a local government district, consisting of 16 communities built around the River Rhondda. The valley is made up of two valleys, the larger Rhondda Fawr valley and the smaller Rhondda Fach valley...

 Valley of Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

. Since the demolition of the Abercynon Workingmen's Hall, the Parc and Dare Workingmen's Hall is the largest in the South Wales coalfield.

History

The Parc and Dare Hall was built in 1892, and began its life as a working men's library and institute. The workers of the Park and the Dare Collieries funded the building by a donating a penny from each pound of their wages. It was a place where the miners could meet and socialise and featured a bar and a library.

In the early twentieth century work began on the Parc and Dare Hall, adding a large theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

, initially to be used as a variety show

Variety show

A variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is an entertainment made up of a variety of acts, especially musical performances and sketch comedy, and normally introduced by a compère or host. Other types of acts include magic, animal and circus acts, acrobatics, juggling...

 venue. In 1913 the theatre was completed, the external style of the building being influenced by the contemporary architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

 of Welsh Nonconformist chapels. Due to the declining popularity of theatre and the emergence of cinema

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

, by 1920 a cinema screen was installed. In 1930, the first 'talkie' picture to be screened was The Broadway Melody

The Broadway Melody

The Broadway Melody is a 1929 American musical film and the first sound film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. It was one of the first musicals to feature a Technicolor sequence, which sparked the trend of color being used in a flurry of musicals that would hit the screens in 1929-1930...

, and people flocked from miles around to hear this new innovation.

In 1975, the theatre was in such a state of disrepair that its closure was inevitable. The Parc & Dare Workmen's Institute Committee, faced with this daunting possibility, donated the building to the then Rhondda Borough Council.

Today the Parc and Dare is still used as a functioning theatre and cinema. Most theatre productions tend to be locally produced, though the venue is used by touring musicians and comedians, and over the years it has hosted the likes of Max Boyce

Max Boyce

Maxwell Boyce MBE is a Welsh comedian, singer and former coal miner. He rose to fame during the mid-1970s with an act that combined musical comedy with his passion for rugby union and his origins in the mining communities of South Wales...

, Ken Dodd

Ken Dodd

Kenneth Arthur Dodd OBE is a British comedian and singer songwriter, famous for his frizzy hair or “fluff dom” and buck teeth or “denchers”, his favourite cleaner, the feather duster and his greeting "How tickled I am!", as well as his send-off “Lots and Lots of Happiness!”...

 and the Kinks' Ray Davies

Ray Davies

Ray Davies, CBE is an English rock musician. He is best known as lead singer and songwriter for the Kinks, which he led with his younger brother, Dave...

. In 2007 the Parc and Dare was used in filming the theatre stage scenes in "Daleks in Manhattan

Daleks in Manhattan

"Daleks in Manhattan" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One on 21 April 2007, and is the fourth episode of Series 3 of the revived Doctor Who series. It is part one of a two-part story, concluded in "Evolution of the Daleks"...

" and "Evolution of the Daleks

Evolution of the Daleks

"Evolution of the Daleks" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on BBC One on 28 April 2007, and is the fifth episode of Series 3 of the revived Doctor Who series. It is the conclusion of the two-part story begun in "Daleks in...

", the fourth and fifth episodes of series 3 of the BBC's revived Doctor Who

Doctor Who

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

series. Over the years there has been numerous amateur dramatics such as The Rhondda Theatre group.

Architecture and design

The former Parc and Dare Institute is now connected at various levels to the Hall and provides the rehearsal rooms, offices and public areas. The façade conceals an unexpectedly ambitious auditorium that, as with most of its kind in Wales, is at first floor level. It is a fine hall with two curved galleries, the slips of each extending to and meeting the proscenium wall. Each gallery front retains its original decorative plasterwork. The proscenium arch is attractively decorated over its entire length with plasterwork representing fruit and flowers. The Parc and Dare is still an Edwardian

Edwardian architecture

Edwardian architecture is the style popular when King Edward VII of the United Kingdom was in power; he reigned from 1901 to 1910, but the architecture style is generally considered to be indicative of the years 1901 to 1914....

 proscenium-arched theatre that acts as a venue for live performance, cinema and community events. The Parc and Dare is a Grade II listed building and stands as the tallest building in Treorchy

Treorchy

Treorchy is a village, although it used to be and still has characteristics of a town, in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales, lying in the Rhondda Fawr valley...

.

The Parc and Dare Workingmen's Hall once had a clock above its entrance. The clock, on Station Road, was added around the same time as the theatre hall, but was removed in the 1970s during renovations and was never replaced. The parc and dare theatre has graced the biggest stars in show business.