WHEN the lights went up in Worcester's Northwick Cinema in the 40s, it usually led to hasty readjustment in the back row of the stalls and the ice cream lady walking slowly down the centre aisle.

When the same thing happens today, it illuminates a veritable Aladdin's Cave of interior design. The Wow Factor.

For the 1930s Art Deco building is now the home of David and Helen Gray's latest business venture in lifestyle living.

Table lamps twinkle and dozens of chandeliers shimmer, bringing warmth and light to everything from sofas to dining chairs to bedroom furniture, cutlery to carefully placed cut glass. There's even a trio of pottery ducks waddling across a coffee table.

For years, even decades, the future of the old cinema, which opened in 1938 and is Grade II Listed, hung in the balance. Many ideas were proposed, but not even the most blue skies thinker would have imagined this.

Yet the stylish interior of the auditorium fits the concept like a glove.

Walk through the doors and you are met by an array that almost takes your breath away, an eclectic mix of many different styles.

Hardly anything here is antique. Most are brand new copies of items from eras past. From Georgian, Queen Anne and mock Tudor through Art Deco and on to the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies right up to the modern designers of today.

They come from more than 80 top suppliers from all over the world with consignments arriving daily.

The displays here change all the time.There's always something fresh to look at. David Gray's vast experience in the business has given him thousands of contacts and an acute finger on the pulse of the trade.

He began in Malvern about 30 years ago before moving to Canada, where he saw the quality products being made by master craftsmen.

On returning to England, he began importing goods from Canada and in 1986 set up the business in The Tything, Worcester, which he ran with Helen and which made the Gray name.

It was a major challenge to move from there and relocate in The Northwick, but it was a stroke of entrepreneurial genius.

Now visitors have their own car park and at the old front of the cinema, where the ticket office and popcorn counter once stood, there will be a smart deli and cafe making a stylish rendezvous to relax and discuss the merits of interior design. It will be the last part of the project to be completed because of the fantastic response from customers old and new.