AN historic cinema is to be returned to the way it looked in the 1930s with £3m cash from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The Tyneside Cinema in Pilgrim Street, Newcastle, is the last surviving purpose-built newsreel cinema in the country that is still showing films.

The cinema, which started life in 1937 as the News Theatre and now shows films from around the world, including leading independent productions, will get an old-style makeover and screen archive newsreels not seen since the 1960s.

The Heritage Lottery Fund has given initial proposals its backing and the cinema can now move forward and draw up detailed plans to secure the cash.

The Northern Rock Foundation is also putting in £500,000 that will help the cinema in its quest for funding.

Keith Bartlett, Heritage Lottery Fund manager for the North-East, said: "The Tyneside Cinema is an important part of Newcastle's past and an excellent example of an early British cinema.

"It will be fantastic to see it restored and enabling people in the North-East to have a unique insight into what life used to be like in the 1930s and 40s."

The cinema's chief executive, Mark Dobson, said: "We are thrilled that we will be able to restore this unique piece of British heritage and at the same time expand and extend the building so that we engage ever more people with independent film from across the world."