'Cinema' - Acrylic on Board
I've just heard that
the 1930s, Art Deco, Regent Cinema in Lyme Regis has burnt down.
Although it's been years since I was there, the news of its loss has
upset me - I have always been a film fan and the Regent was one of my
favourite cinemas.
Much of my childhood
in Walton on Thames was spent at the pictures. My family had been
connected with films and film making from the beginning. My maternal
grandparents and a much loved maiden aunt had worked for Cecil
Hepworth, the pioneer film maker, until his studios went bankrupt in
1923 and my father's family advertised the local cinema on hoardings
outside their garage/petrol station in return for which they received
free tickets. Using these my Grandmother would take us to see
selected films at the Odeon and later on my brother and I became
regulars at Saturday morning pictures at the Regal – sixpence to
get in plus tuppence ha'penny for an ice lolly during the interval.
As I grew older I would sometimes bunk off school in the afternoon to
go and see a film – something I now regret - although, to be
honest, my only real regret is that I didn't do it often enough.
At art school I ran
the college film society. I even worked in films, albeit briefly. As
an eleven year old schoolboy I had had a small part in an advert for
Ribena, the blackcurrant juice drink, and later on I worked as a
runner on a couple of films but by then the twin lures of fame and
fortune had lost their charm and all I really wanted to do was paint.
After moving to Lyme
Regis I soon became a regular at the Regent, happily sitting through
even the crumbiest of films. In the holiday season the town
quadrupled in size and the cinema did good business which probably
kept it solvent the rest of the year. However at midweek showings
during the long winter months it was not unusual to be almost alone
in the auditorium. Occasionally the projectionist, whose
concentration was variable, might allow the film to go out of focus
at which point a member of the audience would have to go and ask for
it to be sharpened up. I remember once when I was almost the only
customer having to go and ask if he would put the Cinemascope lens on
– which he had forgotten to do – and feeling guilty that I had
not only disturbed him but also quite possibly woken him up.
In the summer of
1981 I was invited by one of the usherettes to attend a secret,
midnight, pre-release, staff-only viewing of 'The French Lieutenant's
Woman' much of which had been filmed in the town. There were only a
handful of us and, despite it being the height of summer, the cinema
was freezing because the manager hadn't been told about the screening
and no-one dared turn the heating on in case he found out.
Consequently we all had to cuddle up together in the centre row just
to keep warm.
The film enjoyed a
long run in Lyme Regis mainly because almost all the townspeople had
been involved in its making. One consequence of this mass involvement
was that often during a showing one or more of the locals in the
audience would point at the screen and whisper loudly to their
companion, “Look - that's me!” I fondly remember one screening
during which somebody spoke up during a quiet moment and - clearly
referring to one of the locals over-acting her heart out as an extra
in a street scene - said, “Look at her the silly cow!” at which
point the woman herself who just happened to be sitting only a couple
of rows in front, turned round and replied, “You can't talk, you
fat, f***ing bitch!”
An undocumented but
popular local belief was that another consequence of the filming of
the French Lieutenant's Woman and the occupation of the town by its
undeniably glamorous film crew was that nine months later there was a
small but significant upturn in the local birthrate.
A few years ago I
was commissioned by a fellow film fan to paint a cinema audience made
up entirely of film stars from the 1950s and 60s (above). During its
planning I was given permission by the manager to draw and photograph
the empty theatre out of hours. In the finished painting most of the
auditorium is invented, mainly because I had to make it bigger to
accommodate all those actors, but the empty place at the front is a
faithful portrait of one of the seats from the front row of the old
Regent.
The cinema is now
just an empty shell and that seat is gone along with the rest,
although the latest news is that the owners have said that they will
rebuild it - The Regent is dead, long live the Regent!
