Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Irish) a weekly cinema serial, usu. screened on Saturday mornings.

1953		B. Behan Scarperer (1966) 26: Oh, look out, we’re going past the Plaza now, the picture-house. Smashing follyer-upper. I go to it every Sunday.
1965		L. Dunne Goodbye to The Hill (1966) 9: I’d buy twopence worth of broken biscuits and munch my way through the ‘folly an’ upper’. I saw Flash Gordon and Captain Marvel so many times that I knew most of the dialogue off by heart.
1981		(con. c.1920) P. Crosbie Your Dinner’s Poured Out! 122: We loved the serials, or ‘Follyinuppers’.
1982		(con. 1930s–50s) E. Mac Thomáis Janey Mack, Me Shirt is Black 31: After the pics we’d be brought up to date on Flash Gordon and the ‘follyinupper’.
1989		H. Leonard Out after Dark 6: Like the hero in the weekly follower-upper at the Picture House.
1995		P. Boland Tales From a City Farmyard 54: I didn’t go to the Lyric too often, but for a time [...] I went every week to see a follyinupper named Don Winslow of the Coastguard.
2001		G. Coughlan Everyday Eng. and Sl. 🌐 Follier-upper (n): a serial at the pictures (movies). To be continued ...
2008		B. Barnes Abbey Theatre Diaries 222: The follier-upper to Eden. It is set in a cinema in the midlands which is about to be closed for good and where the manager, the projectionist and the son of the owner say their farewells and reminisce.