It closed in December 2003 and was purchased by local film director and producer Tom Lawes, who initiated extensive renovations to the building in order to restore it to its 1930s Art Deco aesthetic.

The architectural plans were designed by leading theatre architect of the time, Bertie Crewe (1860–1937) which are now a part of the Library of Birmingham's archives and collections.

In 1931 Joseph Cohen, a Birmingham entrepreneur, bought The Select and for a few months screened rep films, before closing the cinema in 1932 with a view to a complete refit.

Architect Cecil E.M.Filmore was hired to help navigate these structural alternations and on 20 March 1937 the cinema reopened as The Tatler News Theatre,[3] after being almost totally rebuilt.

[1] After World War II, with television becoming increasingly popular, attendance at news theatres declined.

This did not last for long and in the 1960s, it became the Jacey Film Theatre, mainly showing a programme of art house and continental pictures.

[9] The cinema was put up for sale and was quickly purchased by local film director and producer Tom Lawes.

In recognition of its centenary in December 2009, local MPs Tom Watson, Khalid Mahmood and Richard Burden raised a motion in the House of Commons stating that the House:[7] recognises the value of independent cinemas to the cultural and social life of local communities; celebrates the continued success of Britain's oldest working cinema, The Electric in Birmingham; notes that on 2 December 2009 a centenary celebration is taking place for the cinema that started life as a silent movie theatre, became a news theatre during the Second World War and succumbed to dereliction in 2003.At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, the cinema enacted a mass redundancy of its staff.

As the freeholder has yet to make a decision about its plans for Station Street, we are not currently in a position to reopen the cinema.