Surveyed
The Plaza opened on Mersey Square in October 1932 as a Super Cinema and Variety Theatre, with the building cut into the sandstone cliff behind it during construction. Rank Leisure closed it in 1966 and ran it as a bingo hall for decades before the Stockport Plaza Trust, an independent charity, took over in 2000 and raised the funds for a restoration completed in 2009. The auditorium seats 1,314 across stalls and two circles, and the original Compton organ, fitted with sunburst glass panels that can be lit in colour, still rises from the orchestra pit before screenings. The single-screen cinema now runs a mixed program of film and live theatre under trust ownership rather than a commercial chain.