sentences:  This allowed the Dome Cinema to reopen on 17 December 1999 with a special showing of the 1957 film "The Smallest Show on Earth", appropriately a comedy about the owner of a troubled small cinema.The reopening was covered by the local press.The Heritage Lottery Fund was willing to put up £1,750,000 for the complete restoration of the Dome but only on the condition that the trust raised £500,000 itself first to demonstrate sufficient local interest to make the project worthwhile.