The Regal Cinema on Forfar’s East High Street was the town’s surviving link to the golden age of cinema before it was wiped off the map in 1987.
The Regal operated as “Forfar’s super-cinema” until 1983, after spending a decade doubling up as a bingo hall due to declining attendances.
When the curtain was drawn for the last time, the Regal became a full-time bingo hall.
A serious fire then gutted the abandoned building in the summer of 1987 and its subsequent demolition proved a turning point for the town.
We’ve opened our archives to look back at the story of the Forfar cinema that captured so many hearts.
Opening reel in 1932
The Regal opened during the golden age of the talkies.
Dundee architect William Keith designed the cinema, which was one of the most modern in the district and owned by the Kirriemuir Cinema Company.
It was a group of local contractors who built the auditorium on East High Street, which was equipped with a modern heating and hot-water system.
The cinema was opened by Provost Hanick on Thursday November 3 1932 and the opening performance was Herbert Wilcox’s musical Goodnight, Vienna.
Provost Hanick said it wouldn’t have looked out of place in London’s Regent Street.
In his opening speech, he said: “I hear it said in these days that too many places of entertainment are being provided.
“But I would point out that the habits and customs of the people are rapidly changing.
“The younger generation is seeking its entertainment in a much more rational form.
“Picture houses are making an ever-widening appeal for the support and sympathy of the public.
“The cinema will have a very wide influence in the social and educational advancement of the community.
“Scenes and events can be brought practically to our own doors.
“In the education of the young, the cinema is a very valuable potential asset, and I can see that in the future a great deal of the children’s education may be obtained through its influence.
“I am delighted to see such a palatial structure as this is.
“It reflects the greatest credit upon the proprietors, and it shows that they have undoubted faith not only in the future of the cinema itself, but in the industrial prospects of Forfar and this neighbourhood.”
The Regal showed movies each evening at 6.15pm and 8.45pm with matinee performances taking place every Saturday and Sunday at 2.15pm.
Ticket prices started at just one shilling and nine pence and proceeds from the first performance, back in 1932, were dedicated to the Forfar Infirmary.
The infirmary chairman, Captain Don, was delighted to receive the donation.
He said: “It is very encouraging to find people with sufficient enterprise to lay out capital in times like these – when most people are afraid to do anything.”
Three Forfar schoolboys set fire to a disused stable at the rear of the cinema in March 1933 but the blaze was discovered by a police constable before it took a firm hold.
They appeared at Forfar Police Court charged with malicious fire-raising.
Bailie Isles deferred sentence for three months after pointing out the seriousness of such an offence and the consequences that might have resulted had the fire reached the cinema.
The cinema was a hub of industry during the Second World War and was often packed to the brim with local farmers who used the building as a meeting house.
The Regal took Forfar film fans to Hollywood and was extremely popular during the 1940s and 1950s and continued to raise money for local good causes.
Before TV and the internet were the foundations of entertainment, there was a market for a plethora of picture houses that included two in Forfar.
However, footfall started to decline in the 1960s, which was around the time that Forfar’s other cinema – the Pavilion – used the opportunity to turn to bingo.
Battle lines were drawn in 1974 when the Regal followed suit.
Kingsway Entertainment Ltd, which owned the Pavilion 100 yards away, objected on the grounds that the Regal’s gaming facilities would be the same as what it offered.
They argued that its own facilities were more than sufficient to meet the town’s demand, while some locals also objected at the doubling-up for one simple reason.
They were worried it was the first step towards the end of the movies.
However, Forfar Magistrates gave the Regal the green light and bingo was played at the old building alongside the movies until 1983 when its final film was shown.
When the credits rolled on the sci-fi fantasy Krull, the cast of which included the likes of Liam Neeson alongside Robbie Coltrane, the curtain came down for good.
The Regal then became a full-time bingo hall.
After failing to overtake the Pavilion in its popularity, however, it lay abandoned by the time of the fire on July 11 1987.
The Regal fire
That fire – still remembered in the heart of the town – was the largest blaze it had seen for more than a decade and dark clouds of smoke blanketed the centre of Forfar.
Hundreds of Forfarians stood on the street and watched as the roof collapsed while the walls bulged and cracked dangerously once the fire took hold.
Two gas cylinders fell into the flames and the Co-op next door was evacuated while 35 firefighters from Forfar, Dundee, Kirriemuir and Brechin fought the blaze.
With the help of six fire tenders, they doused the flames in more than 800 gallons of water and managed to prevent the fire from spreading beyond the Regal.
The Regal itself was a burnt-out shell.
The crew spent the rest of the night dampening the embers.
An on-site inspection was held with the police, fire brigade, and Angus District Council engineers and Trojan Metals from Dundee was contracted to demolish the cinema.
After the Regal had been pulled down, the work continued apace the following month when a £154,000 demolition and improvement scheme started in Forfar.
A row of properties on South Street was taken down to make way for a new junction, which was followed by the removal of Forfar’s remaining chimney, at the town’s baths.
There were – at one time – 10 of the iconic chimneys across the town.
The forest of chimneys stood at jute and linen works at Easterbank Laundry, Pirners Mill, The Tails, Craik’s, The Haughie, Big and Little Don’s, Jock Lowsons, and Laird’s.
The chimney at the old swimming baths was dismantled brick-by-brick because there was not enough room to set off an explosion without causing significant damage.
Forfar’s old East Port was gone like a row of dominoes.
Today the site of the old Regal is an M&Co store and a coffee shop.
David Potter, author of Forfar On This Day, recalled his memories of the Regal and suggested the reason it might have been given its grandiose moniker!
“It was opened in 1932 and deliberately called Regal, I feel, to contrast it with the Gaff, which was opened in 1910, badly in need of repair, and still had wooden seats, apparently!
“The opening of The Regal also signalled the end of the Reid Hall as a cinema.
“The 1930s were the time when the cinema really took off with talkies and the Regal was looked upon as the place where a young man would take his girlfriend if he wished to impress her!
“The entrance area was huge.
“On rainy days, it was not unheard of for the Dundee bus queue, normally some 30 yards further up East High Street to move en-masse to the Regal for shelter!
“The bus driver would allow for this! I remember doing that once or twice in the 1960s!”
