A Regal Appointment

Going to the cinema during the ‘80s was like stepping into a different world. My formative film education was at the Regal in Leamington Spa and that experience couldn’t be more different than it is today. For a start, the Regal had the sum total of one screen, and you absolutely had to queue. And I mean – stand for ages in a huge line snaking around the building – queue. A family trip to the cinema was an event, more akin to a military manoeuvre of planning, parking, herding, arguing and possibly not getting in.

Designed by architect Horace G. Bradley, the Regal Cinema opened on 14th September 1931. By the ‘80s, it was a little worn around the edges. The back-lit, coloured glass, surreal style dragons either side of the proscenium were long gone. But the cavernous space (always slightly intimidating to me) betrayed evidence of its original oriental stylings. There were three blocks of seats, a large centre section and two smaller ones to either side. As a family, we always sat in the middle block, not for the view, but because my mum smoked and that was the designated area. Smoking in the cinema, imagine that!

Of course, being a child of the ‘80s, I was absolutely spoilt by the films on offer. Ghostbusters, ET, Indiana Jones… but the film that affected me most was Back to the Future. It completely got under my skin and on some fundamental level changed me. I became completely obsessed with the character of Marty McFly. The red puffer vest, denim jacket and Nike trainers, perfectly captured how I wanted to look. Plus, he was cool. Really, really cool. It completely went over my 10-year-old head that the film highlights his flaws and even occasionally makes fun of him. To me, he was amazing… I think I fell in love with him a little bit. The impact that this film (and many others) had on me is inextricably linked to the Regal cinema. Despite the fact that it was basically an ugly brick box – a far cry from its original Art Deco exterior – I thought it was beautiful.

A lot is made – in this era of streaming –  about the experience of the cinema. And while I certainly understand this perspective, I think the type of cinema is a huge contributing factor in that experience. The Regal’s huge, somewhat intimidating space, as transformative as the film I was watching. Whenever I think back to watching those culture-defining films of the ‘80s, I think first of the Regal, of being in that space and how it made me feel.

There is still a cinema at what was once the Regal. It is now a Vue with 6 screens, motion posters, plasterboard and bland carpet. Everything that made the Regal unique has been replaced by corporate dictated styling. But, whenever I visit, I can feel the bones of that old cinema. It’s a disorienting experience, to be standing in the place I so vividly remember, so irrevocably altered.

And so, 40 years from when I sat watching Marty McFly, cigarette smoke slightly clouding the screen, I’m sad that my daughter won’t experience a film the way that I did. I mean, she doesn't even get to enjoy an interval.