Now, it is a simple but well observed observation that you don’t have to live in Deal to write about its cinema …………. although I concede it helps.
This is the Regent Cinema on Victoria Parade.
Our Liz and Colin came across it recently, took the picture and sent it up to me, 288 miles away, or if you choose to fly, just 219 miles or 353 kilometres. At which point I have to confess I have no idea why it is shorter by plane, but there you are it is.
As for the cinema, it has had a chequered life. It opened as the Pavilion Theatre on July 28th, 1928, at the height of the holiday season and was owned by Deal Council. But bookings for live performances became difficult and it was converted into a cinema, showing its first film on July 13th, 1933. This was the "King of the Ritz" starring Stanley Lupino.
I doubt that many in the cheap stalls on that first night would have known that during the conversion the stage was turned a full 25 degrees from the south end to the west which gave better sight lines. A cafe was provided in a room to the left of the entrance doors and a new projection box and offices were built in a first-floor extension over the front of the building.
It closed in 1963, exchanging cinema images for bingo callers and remained a bingo club until it went dark in 2009.
Plans to reopen it as a cinema in 204 stalled because of objections by the Highways Committee, but there has been popular support for its reopening, and earlier in the year the council announced it had no plans to oppose its reopening. **
That was in February, and plans may now be reaching a speedy conclusion for the return of the silver screen.
Or not and that is where living 288 miles away can be a problem. So, while it was easy to obtain the picture, and equally easy to track the Regent’s history and the subsequent story of the attempts to reopen it, all of which were done online, I have no idea of the outcome, but someone will.
Location; Deal
Pictures; Regent Cinema, Deal, 2019, from the collection of Elizabeth and Colin Fitzpatrick
* Regent Cinema, Victoria Parade, Deal, http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/32928
** Deal Town Council raise no objections to Regent cinema plans
KENT TRAVEL NEWS, Eleanor Perkins, eperkins@thekmgroup.co.uk, February 08, 2019
https://www.kentonline.co.uk/deal/news/council-support-plans-for-long-awaited-cinema-198521/
Our Liz and Colin came across it recently, took the picture and sent it up to me, 288 miles away, or if you choose to fly, just 219 miles or 353 kilometres. At which point I have to confess I have no idea why it is shorter by plane, but there you are it is.
As for the cinema, it has had a chequered life. It opened as the Pavilion Theatre on July 28th, 1928, at the height of the holiday season and was owned by Deal Council. But bookings for live performances became difficult and it was converted into a cinema, showing its first film on July 13th, 1933. This was the "King of the Ritz" starring Stanley Lupino.
It closed in 1963, exchanging cinema images for bingo callers and remained a bingo club until it went dark in 2009.
Plans to reopen it as a cinema in 204 stalled because of objections by the Highways Committee, but there has been popular support for its reopening, and earlier in the year the council announced it had no plans to oppose its reopening. **
That was in February, and plans may now be reaching a speedy conclusion for the return of the silver screen.
Or not and that is where living 288 miles away can be a problem. So, while it was easy to obtain the picture, and equally easy to track the Regent’s history and the subsequent story of the attempts to reopen it, all of which were done online, I have no idea of the outcome, but someone will.
Pictures; Regent Cinema, Deal, 2019, from the collection of Elizabeth and Colin Fitzpatrick
* Regent Cinema, Victoria Parade, Deal, http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/32928
** Deal Town Council raise no objections to Regent cinema plans
KENT TRAVEL NEWS, Eleanor Perkins, eperkins@thekmgroup.co.uk, February 08, 2019
https://www.kentonline.co.uk/deal/news/council-support-plans-for-long-awaited-cinema-198521/
No comments:
Post a Comment