One of Plymouth’s most treasured buildings is just weeks away from a decision which could see it restored or demolished.
Whether you remember it as The Royal, The ABC or The Reel, for nearly a hundred years this building has been entertaining Plymothians and creating some very special memories with performances by, among many other legends, The Beatles, Cliff Richard, Tom Jones and Elton John. Linda from Liskeard was 14 when she lost her voice screaming for Paul, her favourite of the Fab Four:
“I went to see The Beatles at the ABC in ‘63 and ’64. The first time I took my friend Tracy, but she never thanked me for the ticket so, the following year, I went on my own.”
The Royal opened its Art Deco doors on the 15th of July in 1938. It was an immediate sensation, seating two and a half thousand people who packed the seats to watch Katherine Hepburn on screen in “Stage Door” and Hollywood heartthrob Cesar Romero in “Dangerously Yours”. Today the cinema looks a shadow of its former glamorous self, boarded up and stripped out as it awaits either resurrection or destruction.
Local historian, author and member of the Plymouth Royal Cinema Trust, Chris Robinson, says it is a building of local, as well as national, significance:
“It’s an important pre-war survivor of Plymouth’s modern city centre,” he says. “It was designed and built as a statement-building at the time of the talking pictures and its one of the few W R Glen buildings still standing. It would be a real shame if ‘time’ was called and, having survived the Blitz, it was demolished.”
The Royal/The ABC/The Reel – depending on which generation you might be from – has just a few weeks before its fate is sealed. A deadline of September the 6th looms after which one of Plymouth’s most iconic pre-war buildings may be reduced to rubble. The cinema has just one chance…
Since 2017 a group of fervent admirers of the building has been campaigning to protect it and have fought several proposals to demolish it and build student accommodation, a block of flats and a hotel. In 2018 the building, which is not listed, was designated “An Asset of Community Value” recognising the social importance of the cinema: past, present and future. The designation affords it one single lifeline: a given right for ‘the community’ to put forward a bid to buy it. Enter our cinema screen saviours who have stepped out and formed The Plymouth Royal Cinema Trust Community Benefit Society with a plan to transform it into a creative and digital venue fit for the 21st Century. Karl Parsons, chair of the Royal CBS confirms that talks with potential partners are underway:
“We are having some really exciting conversations about how the building could be transformed and what it can offer as a mixed-use venue that will, not just, increase the social value of the city but the city’s economy as well.”
Plymouth City Council and Plymouth Culture’s recent Creative Industries Plan identifies a music and performance zone falling between Royal Parade and Union Street which it predicts, with support and investment, ‘could help to establish Plymouth as the urban creative capital of Devon and Cornwall’.
Hannah Harris, CEO of Plymouth Culture, says The Royal should be saved:
“This building was purpose built to house cinema and entertainment and is still standing as a testament to the incredible cultural offer within the city. We strongly advocate for the building to be preserved for cultural use and see its potential to contribute to the wider Performance Quarter as set out in the Creative Industries Plan’.
It is obvious that there is an enormous amount of money needed and work to be done before the building is ready for a new audience. But this, maintains Karl – restoring the 20th century building and making it for another hundred years – is just another royal opportunity:
“We are talking to potential partners,”
says Karl,
“who see the renovation works as being a fantastic training opportunity across many disciplines: not just traditional construction skills, like bricklaying, painting, electrical and plumbing work but also in ‘reconstruction’, repurposing existing buildings, modernising them and designing them fit for a new future and a new purpose.”
The Save The Royal campaigners are hopeful that, with enough support, this beautiful building will be entrusted to the community; restored and become a place of entertainment, leisure and learning. If you’d like to know more about the campaign or would like to get involved please visit www.savetheroyal.com and/or plymouthroyal@hotmail.com
