What’s a Bioscope show?
The word Bioscope comes from the Greek ‘bios’ meaning life and ‘skopeein’ meaning to look. The word predates the invention of cinema, it means ‘a view or survey of life’, which is quite a philosophical concept.
What we mean by a ‘Bioscope show’ in relation to the evolution of cinema is something very specific; the word Bioscope in this context means a kind of travelling cinema show that was popular in the 1890s and 1900s which incorported films and live music hall acts within a fairground attraction.
These shows became known as Bioscopes because that was the name of a type of projector that their operators commonly used. The Bioscope projector, which was devised by one of the most successful entrepreneurs of early cinema Charles Urban, used a handle to wind on the film. This gave it an advantage over other models as it didn’t need to be attached to a source of electricty in order to work, which could quite unreliable at the time.
The show-fronts of these large travelling Bioscope shows could be very elaborate, most of them featured a large fairground organ which was augmented by carved woodwork, colourful paintings and strings of lights.
Before the start of the picture show, dancing girls, acrobats and trapeze artists would perform on the stage outside to entertain the audiences waiting to enter and the showman would encourage people to pay to see the show with an account of the delights they were about to witness.
